


Stop Time

by Bandtrees



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet Ending, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Control Issues, DO NOT MAKE YOUR CHILD A GOD, Gen, Lots of it, Non-Canonical Character Death, OH SHIT THAT'S A TAG, Panic Attacks, Song: Stop Time (35mm: A Musical Exhibition), THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS., Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, Trauma, VERY ILL-ADVISED PARENTING DECISIONS, Villain!Tommy Coolatta, Yeah Baby, angst & comedy, eventual science team friendship (-tommy), fic/chapter titles come from that song, game au, multiple POVs, save for the finale which is a reference to dogscape, villain AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26300506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bandtrees/pseuds/Bandtrees
Summary: Seconds rewound, then minutes, painful hours turning into milliseconds with the ease of which Tommy manipulated them, until finally, everything went gold, and Mr. Freeman’s pain was finally gone.Maybe it was the coward’s way out — but this coward was determined to live, and grant his friend that same opportunity.
Comments: 118
Kudos: 163





	1. Captured Light

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Stop Time! My very own fun little time shenanigans AU. This _is_ gonna be a timeloop AU, as well as a Villain!Tommy AU, just... eventually! I've got big plans, and not all of 'em I hit in this first part. It's gonna be a ride, so get cozy :]
> 
> HLVRAI work skin created by thedevotress on Tumblr, it's super cool! https://thedevotress.tumblr.com/post/628408989141581824/i-just-got-reminded-of-my-hlvrai-workskin-so
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

Tommy could distantly hear Gordon’s strained groans as he fitfully tried to fall asleep on the other end of the room, still pale with blood loss and dripping with sweat, sludge, and sewage. Though the bleeding had since stopped, his arm injury was no less grisly to look at — if anything, the exposure to the elements made it even worse. They hadn’t found a medical station around yet, and if the military didn’t take Gordon out, Tommy was growing dreadfully certain that some kind of infection to the open wound would. 

And worst of all, there was nothing he could do about it. Watching the splash of the murky brown water beneath his feet as he dangled his legs over the edge and tossed in stray soda cans was all Tommy could do to block out the heart-wrenching sound of Mr. Freeman moaning with pain as he tossed and turned, the plates of his radiation suit unpleasantly scraping against the concrete. Chewing his inner cheek, he had to fight the urge to look over, knowing the sight would only put him in a worse mood. 

It was all his fault. 

Well, not _all_ his fault, but more of his fault than he and Mr. Freeman wanted to acknowledge. He was too afraid to rock the boat, causing more pain than getting out was worth, convincing himself that this was all right somehow, but the _moment_ he heard the fleshy slice of Gordon’s hand being severed, he wanted nothing more than to take it back. He wished he did _something_ other than just standing there freaking out, but it was too late for any of that now. He just watched bug-eyed, letting out empty exclamations of shock, as his feet stayed rooted to the floor. 

It had only been three hours at most since the blackout, but it replayed in Tommy’s head still. The shadows left so much to the imagination, but he could hear in Bubby and Benrey’s voices that they were laughing — _cheering_ , even. He shuddered to think that he hadn’t ever heard Benrey as excited as he was when he watched the soldiers beat Gordon senseless. Tommy knew there’d been bad blood between the two of them, but was under the impression it was playful ribbing, as the security guard tended to express affection. 

He stared numbly down at the ripples following the splash of another can hitting the water, gaze tracking it as it bobbed along the surface. He thought back to his own friendship with Benrey — how much of that “playful ribbing” was playful? Would he feel the same way if it was Tommy under that knife? He thought they were friends — but he’d thought the same about Benrey and Gordon, and Bubby and Gordon, and if he couldn’t trust that, how could he trust anything?  


Where had it all gone wrong? He remembered that little circle they’d sat in outside, talking about their dreams together as Benrey lobbed rocks at them (playfully, right?), Gordon’s face lighting up as he went into his love for video games in what felt like a respite from the aliens and infighting. It felt like it was all over for a moment, the team continuing with their journey even closer than before, now knowing the goals their companions were fighting to achieve. 

And it was all fake. Bubby was lying through his teeth as he chatted with Gordon, lulling him into a false sense of camaraderie, and Tommy could’ve sworn he saw Benrey nod Gordon’s way as he spoke with the soldiers. Like predators preparing to go in for the kill. How could they stand to do that to someone with hopes and dreams — someone whose only crime was to be dressed for work? All Mr. Freeman wanted was to help them, and God knew how easy it would’ve been to get fed up with the fighting and escape Black Mesa alone. 

He cared about them, because if he didn’t he wouldn’t have shot down the barnacles Dr. Coomer got tangled up in, or held up the fire door for Bubby, or lectured Tommy about inadvertently killing Benrey (the first time), and what did he get for his troubles but a lifelong disability and cold-hearted betrayal from those he tried so hard to protect? 

Even in his sleep, Gordon’s breathing was haggard, and Tommy could feel himself get choked up at the sound. He hadn’t cried much in his life (even when Benrey joked that he always sounded like he was going to) — but this was the second time he’d cried since the blackout. He couldn’t help it — even in the wake of the Resonance Cascade, he’d been spoiled enough to have four teammates to rely on, to cover fire and give him things to think about that weren’t his dismal situation or the very real possibility he’d never see his Dad or Sunkist again, but now, those friends had stuck knives in each other's backs, and the only one Tommy could trust was bleeding out on the floor and shaking in his sleep. 

He had to calm himself down, but his thoughts continued to spiral, past the soldiers and the creatures and Bubby and Benrey and Gordon’s arm, until, completely involuntarily, an ugly sob escaped his throat. Then another, louder, echoing across the vast room as his vision blurred and eyes stung. The floodgates were open — Tommy could see one or two tears drop into the murky water — and his hands shook as he gasped and cried, painfully aware of how much he must’ve looked like a child now, and of the fact that if anyone in this room had the right to cry, it sure wasn’t him, but nothing hurt more than seeing his friends hurt — except maybe being unable to do shit for it. 

It wasn’t fair! None of it was fair! Mr. Freeman didn’t deserve this, and there was nothing Tommy could do but cry about it, even when Gordon needed him to be strong, needed his instincts to rely on. How much worse would he feel if he knew his last beacon of hope was just as scared as him? Tommy gasped out, trying to steady his breathing to no avail, bunching the sleeve of his coat up in his hands as he wiped the dampness from his reddening face, and for a second he was too busy wallowing to notice — 

“Tommy?” 

Mr. Freeman was awake, if he’d even managed to fall asleep at all, and Tommy cursed himself for taking away what may have been his friend’s only moments of relief from the pain. His back was turned, but he could hear the heavy metallic footfalls of Gordon’s HEV suit, and the hyperventilation returned full-force at the prospect of having to tell Mr. Freeman why he’d just been sobbing. 

The man groaned, halting for a moment, presumably in response to another spike of pain. “Everything okay, bud?” 

Swallowing hard and letting out another ugly sad noise, Tommy shuddered as he impulsively shook his head no. He could hear his companion draw closer, and as an instinctive panic response, tapped into a part of his mind he’d left neglected for a long, long time. 

The room flashed a brilliant gold, illuminating the ripples on the murky water, bringing light to even the most shadowy of crevices along the wall. Even as it dimmed, the color continued to hang in the air, casting a warm glow against the soda can now frozen in sewage. 

Time had stopped. Tommy let out a trembling breath as he realized this, shoulders slumping with relief as he took a moment to recollect himself. Casting a glance back to Gordon, he too was locked in place, and only now could Tommy truly see the state he was in — sadly, the warm glow did nothing to ease the horrific sight. His sunken eyes were bloodshot, his skin pale and sticky with sweat, the bruises left by the military’s rough treatment now dark and shining. His suit was slathered in the filth he’d presumably been dumped in afterwards, and it appeared unclean water wasn’t his only concern when it came to potential infection of his wound — up close, Tommy could see sand crusting the injury, the blood on his suit from it a dreadful black, the elements uncaring of his vulnerable, _vulnerable_ flesh. 

It made him almost want to cry again, and that was saying nothing of the sheer exhaustion on Mr. Freeman’s face. It made him look almost Tommy’s age, eyes half-lidded and weighed down by dark circles — they may have always been there, but at least had been obscured by his glasses, which now rested folded-up with a crooked frame on the floor where he’d been sleeping. His hair was unkempt, his balance off-kilter, and Tommy felt that if he were to resume time the man might just keel over on the spot. 

They couldn’t live like this. Tommy’s face was still red and puffy with tears, the smell of sewage and the copper of Mr. Freeman’s wound obstructed by the mucus his nose was now caked with, Gordon looked to _already_ have one foot (arm, rather) in the grave, and they were fighting through Black Mesa all alone — with three superpowered friends-turned-enemies running amok, to boot. The others would kill them — likely laughing about it just as they had when Gordon was left for dead to the military. 

The second he let them out of this golden haze, the pain would resume. The Tommy from four hours ago may have said to stick it out, keep positive, but the Tommy from the present couldn’t handle that thought. He couldn’t spend another second looking at Mr. Freeman’s steps growing slower and slower as the blood loss reduced him to delirium. He couldn’t offer any more empty reassurances, or jokes, or _anything_ , because he knew that if the military somehow spared Gordon, the remaining members of the fractioned Science Team would have him diced up in the Pita Bread Cutting Room™️ and fed to Peeper-Puppies. 

It was a word Tommy tried to keep out of his vernacular, but there was no description more fitting than _hopeless_. 

His breathing slowed, taking in the silence of the suspended world around him, beginning to understand a fraction of the power his Dad felt — the entire universe had simply _stopped_ , all because of his will, with nothing but a little flex of his hand. 

He hadn’t done this in years, and never with serious reason. Nothing about Tommy was ever _serious_. He drank soda for lunch and memorized all of _Shrek_ and wore mismatched socks and penned his schedules in glittery markers. He was never going to be prepared for the Resonance Cascade, even with an entire arsenal of world-altering powers at his disposal. His idea of an apocalypse, until now, was… what, Illumination Pictures going out of business? Yet here he was, face to face with the worst the world had to offer, and he couldn’t handle it. 

His hand flexed again, just to test it, and with a flash, Gordon was back on the ground. The world was frozen still, now a minute in the past. The past minute was preferable to the present, if only because Gordon hadn’t been awake to hear Tommy’s crying, but he remembered how fitfully the other slept, and couldn’t bear to inflict that upon him again. 

Tommy’s reddened eyes flickered to his outstretched hand, allowing the energy to flow through him, simply as breathing despite how long it had been since he’d used his abilities. Seconds rewound, then minutes, painful hours turning into milliseconds with the ease of which Tommy manipulated them, until finally, everything went gold, and Mr. Freeman’s pain was finally gone. 

Maybe it was the coward’s way out — but this coward was determined to live, and grant his friend that same opportunity. 

* * *

This plan was gonna be fucking foolproof, Bubby knew for certain. He’d seen some shit at Black Mesa — nothing quite like this, but it all came down to the same solution: find the glitch in the system, the little typo in the hypothesis that kept it from being _perfect_ , and snuff it out with _extreme_ prejudice. He’d know that better than anyone, with 87 failed prototypes running around, locked underground by his creators for sins as simple as asymmetrical faces or skin blemishes. 

And the result was the perfect 88th clone, the symmetrical, clear-skinned, _perfect_ scientist with the most foolproof plans in the entire fucking galaxy! 

Unfortunately, he had to associate himself with a security guard, someone unimaginably low on Black Mesa’s pecking order, to make his perfect foolproof plan _work_ , but that was fine. Benrey was fine — at least he didn’t seem intent on kissing Gordon’s ass like Dr. Coomer and Tommy just because he was the guy with the crowbar who could bark orders the loudest. What did some physicist that didn’t even use his degree for anything know about navigating the Resonance Cascade? _Nothing_ , that was what! 

Except for _causing_ it, maybe, which didn’t exactly win any points in his favor. 

Benrey was the only one that seemed to get that, thriving on knocking the guy off his pedestal as much as possible. Nothing big, usually — just showing him that, try as he might, he couldn’t control everything. It was supremely satisfying to watch — and funny. That and being a meat shield was pretty much all Freeman and his overblown ego were good for. 

God, weren’t people with overblown egos the _worst?_

Annoyance aside, there was a real problem with Gordon Freeman. Bubby remembered learning about it at a point, but hadn’t heard it for himself until now: the HEV suit of his was covered in GPS trackers, and he’d get them all killed if he kept wandering around. And just driving him off wouldn’t work — they had to turn him over before the military got the chance to tear the place apart looking for him. Benrey got that — though he seemed to think it was more of a “cool prank” than anything — and Bubby figured Dr. Coomer wasn’t… _lucid_ …enough to care either way. 

Tommy proved to be the hardest sell. He wasn’t as receptive to the Beyblade as Bubby would’ve hoped, even when he broke out the pyrotechnics for his sales pitch. (Benrey came up with that part — Bubby knew about a lot of things, some of them no humans knew before! But Beyblades were out of his scope, he had to admit. Nerd baby shit.) 

At first, vague terminology was Bubby’s safest bet — ( _“ We’re just figuring out how to deal with a problem…”_) — but Tommy continued to pry, much to his frustration. Diversions didn’t work, nor did just ignoring him — nothing gave Bubby a heart attack like hearing Tommy say he’d ask _Mr. Freeman_ if he knew what they meant — and when they finally cracked and whispered to him the plan, something changed in the kid’s expression. 

There came a visceral fear and disgust Bubby didn’t even think he was _capable_ of. He had to hush him before he started shouting, Bubby cursing himself for the miscalculation that Tommy would ever take the truth well. “But, but, but, but the — but they’re gonna hurt the, they’re gonna _torture_ Mr. Freeman!” He whimpered, eyes wide, thankfully making some attempt at keeping his voice down. 

Bubby ground his teeth, studying Tommy as he thought about how to proceed. He was a mere child (well, he said he was thirty-six, but there was some… clear dissonance between that and how he behaved) — operating on the kindergarten semantics of good and bad, even when the need for those distinctions had long since passed. Bubby had seen him kill countless men thus far — how was turning Gordon over to the wolves any different? 

“Alright, Tommy,” he began with a sigh. He’d kneel a bit to reach his height, like one would when trying to appear eye-level with a tantruming kid, but Tommy was a fair amount taller than him. The shadow the other scientist cast on him would’ve been unnerving — to anyone but Bubby, who wasn’t afraid of _anything!_ “Gordon’s a strong guy. He can hold his own just fine. You saw him going… fucking _buckwild_ on those soldiers we bumped into, right?” 

That wasn’t an exaggeration. The more fucked up side of Bubby kind of wanted the HECU to kill Gordon dead, just for the sake of everyone else, but there was no doubt in his mind that he’d fight them off (hopefully not coming back with a hunger for revenge. He was too much of a softie for that, though, right?). Bubby was full of (perfectly justified, in his opinion) anger for the physicist, but even then he found himself with a tinge of reluctance. No matter — Gordon would be fine out there, and soon Bubby would escape and none of this would be his problem anymore. 

Still, though, Tommy didn’t seem convinced, hands anxiously wringing his tie — what was his _problem_ , even? Surely he’d rather get out _alive_ than be gunned down for sticking around someone with a massive target on his back? Bubby was beginning to speak up again, to try a different approach, when Tommy made a noise of dissatisfaction, starting to stammer. 

“Bu — but, but I, the, the, um…” He scrunched up his face, his crossed eyes focusing on the fabric in his hands. There was a short stretch of silence, and Bubby could just see the gears turning in his weird little head. “He helps us, doesn’t he? Mr. Freeman, he, he said at the beginning, that he was gonna help get us outta here.” he blinked, looking back up towards Bubby, dark eyes looking misty, expression drawn into an unsure frown. “Remember?” 

He did. Gordon stopping to stand on a table, addressing a hallway full of frightened scientists huddled together — _“ So we’re all headed to the surface? Listen up, my name is Gordon Freeman, I’m gonna get us all outta here, okay?”_ — and not even a minute later did every one of them die to a grenade, so. Showed how much _he_ knew — having the audacity to walk in there and brag about his hero complex while letting more and more people die in an accident _he_ caused. 

Whatever Tommy could afford to see in the guy was completely lost on Bubby — this wasn’t just an unfortunate workplace accident for him. He was _born_ down here, Black Mesa was his life, and he had it all taken away piece by piece — from the initial explosion, to the aliens, to the grenade, to the soldiers. Would it kill Gordon to reap what he’d sown? 

Ideally, actually. 

He was lost so far in his thoughts that it took a moment to remember Tommy was still there _staring_ at him with those crossed misty eyes like _that_ would make him change his mind. He tutted, looking away from the other, tucking a hand into his lab coat to retrieve the revolver tucked away within it. Tommy didn’t flinch when he presented it — minds with itchy trigger fingers seemed to think alike — and for a moment, the thrill of showing off a weapon drowned out his righteous Gordon-fueled anger. 

“And?” He started, flashing a shark-fanged grin Tommy’s way. “You think we can’t get outta here _ourselves?_ I don’t think you’re giving us enough credit.” The kid shrunk in on himself a little, going back to fumbling with his tie. Bubby twirled his pistol in a hand, hoping Tommy didn’t notice when he nearly dropped it to the floor and shot himself in the foot. “Or yourself, for that matter! You’re a bright mind, Tommy,” he leaned in, “and that’s high praise coming from me.” 

The other scientist flushed a little at the flattery, and then Bubby was confident he’d reeled him in — hook, line, and sinker. He affectionately clapped the taller man’s shoulder, careful not to smack him with his gun in the process, then turned to rejoin the rest of the group. Any moment of respite the conversation brought him was soured when he took in the sound of gunfire and Gordon shouting at something or other. 

Dr. Coomer dropped from the ceiling, landing on his ass with a crash — oh, the ropes. Right. Dr. Coomer was a bright man, to Bubby’s memory — he was a scientist for a _reason_ , of course — but the moment Gordon came along… a few screws seemed to get knocked loose. Not like Bubby was _complaining_ — it was one less person to have to persuade to join their scheme. 

Gun still drawn, Bubby made his way to the front of the group, keeping his ears open for aliens Gordon was too busy bantering with the others to catch. It was strange — Tommy acted like he cared _so much_ , and sure, Gordon was a friendly guy, certainly not a sadist (just a dumbass), but they had bigger things to worry about than… 

“Nooo, don’ listen to him, they’re definitely ropes—” “Benrey I swear to God I will kill you _again_ if you keep enabling him.” 

…the things he tended to worry about. If he wasn’t hung up on every odd thing the team did, Bubby bet that they would have reached the surface three hours ago. Sadly, Gordon Freeman was intent on treating every obstacle like it was his first. Bubby hated heights, but even _he_ didn’t spend two minutes shaking in place over a goddamn physics puzzle. What harm could a fifty foot drop do, anyway? 

Even the gunfire of wiping out a room crawling with soldiers couldn’t fully drown out the sound of him snapping at Benrey. _Oooouuughh, woe is me, I caused the apocalypse and now I’m confused and lost and everyone is so annoying, oough,_ like he was the only one going through this shit, like it was any easier for _them_ to have to deal with their workplace suddenly turning into an alien invaded fuckden. 

Whatever. Bubby was annoyed, sure, but he couldn’t act it, not while they still (and he didn’t like saying this) kinda needed Gordon to escape. He was fine, personal grudges for causing the end of the world as they knew it aside, and joking along with him when even Bubby became lost on the others’ antics wouldn’t hurt anyone. 

(And when their lives weren’t on the line, it _was_ pretty funny to mess with him. Bubby was growing convinced Gordon couldn’t tell when he was joking from when he was being serious — seeming to think he was just as dumb as the others for shooting at a bunch of moths when, really, it was just way funnier than it should’ve been to make Gordon lose his mind in frustration. Maybe that was his spending too much time with Benrey, though.) 

He could feel his heart swell with… some sick sense of pride, turning down the fateful hallway. A rusted metal sign was bolted to the wall — **SURFACE ACCESS** , emblazoned in red blocky letters. It was like a project coming to fruition after ages of planning — and in a way, it was. Bubby didn’t know how Benrey got in touch with the soldiers, and didn’t expect to get an answer, but he was thankful he did. A neat, simple way to eradicate the glitch in the system, the typo in the hypothesis, the big orange target leading danger right to them. 

From here, they would be home free, and that was the thought Bubby clung to when he thought a pinch too hard about how reactive Gordon was, how he’d scream and cry like a fucked up little animal as the military hauled him off to do God-only-knew-what. But what was one physicist to the, oh, five hundred or so Black Mesa employees who’d lost their lives already? 

“And look! There’s even a medical station in there!” Bubby called out as Gordon peered down a corner, prompting him to turn back to the room. There _was_ a med kit on the wall, clear as day. That he was thankful for — he only knew the location of the drop-off spot, not what was in it, and was a little afraid he’d have to improv off some reason for Gordon to go into a completely empty room. 

He could see Gordon considering it, that sick sense of pride growing stronger and stronger as he glanced from his teammates to the open doorway — the red of the medical station was almost fluorescent in the dim light, and there was something about angler fishes luring in their prey Bubby could probably wax poetic about. 

“Medical stations can be used to recover from wounds, Gordon.” Dr. Coomer stated, Bubby unsure if he was in on this or just… feeling the need to define things to his friend, as usual, but nodding along regardless. It didn’t hurt. 

“I mean, uh…” Gordon blinked, running a hand through his ponytail and glancing aside. “I don’t think I need it. Do you guys need it?” Looking from person to person, he recoiled at the sight of the bloodied gashes at Dr. Coomer’s temples. “I mean, you look pretty fucked, but. I think you’ve survived worse.” 

Another voice cut through — one Bubby was surprised to hear, given he didn’t contribute to group conversations often. “I think there’s…” Tommy began, stammering for a second when the others turned his way. “...that looks like a dead end, Dr. Freeman. And, uh, and I think I saw another med kit down the hall…” 

Bubby hoped the twitch of sudden fury wasn’t noticeable. 

“I… yeah, that kinda does look like a dead end.” Gordon agreed, adjusting his glasses and squinting. “Let’s not waste our time, there might be, like, soldiers waiting in there or something.” 

Benrey’s eyes bulged as his hand went to his mouth to swallow back a laugh. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, Feetman.” 

Gordon stopped in the middle of readying his gun again to give the security guard a disgusted look. There was a beat as he processed. “Okay, one, _never_ call me that again,” he gestured with his weapon, whether as a threat or just him being expressive as always, Bubby wasn’t sure, “two, this is the only time I think I’ve ever heard you excited about something and that does _not_ bode well for me. What did you do to that room?” 

Bubby swallowed, though his companion didn’t seem to share the concern. “Uuuhhh, put a bucket of water up on the door.” Benrey deadpanned, somehow managing to be both the most and least conspicuous person alive. “It was gonna be really funny.” 

Tommy frowned. “That’s not nice, he coulda drowned.” 

All Gordon could manage in response to that was a surprised laugh, which seemed to be his response to most things. “I — _pfff_ — I appreciate the concern, Tommy, but I think you’re overestimating how much water is in, like, a beach toy bucket. Is that all this is?” He looked to Bubby, who looked to Benrey, who could only offer a single “yup”. 

“God, it’s like taking care of a bunch of fifth graders —” Gordon shook his head, still snickering, “— know what? I’m going in. I could use a dunking, I think.” His voice was light as ever, clearly not taking it seriously. Bubby could tell he didn’t buy the water bucket story, the dead giveaway being the fact this room didn’t have a door, but he still thought he was in for some friendly jab. A harmless prank. 

When the lights went out, he only laughed — “Alright, who’s fucking with me?” — as Benrey continued to be as conspicuously inconspicuous as possible — “Ohh, no, it’s _dark_ in here…” — which wasn’t something Bubby _asked_ him to do but, fuck, he seemed to be having fun with it. 

“Seriously, who knocked out the lights?” Gordon asked again, presumably looking around the room, an edge of annoyance entering his voice. He _had_ said he didn’t want to waste any time. 

Neither did Bubby. 

From the end of the room, he could just hear the static screech of some radio or walkie-talkie, Gordon wondering aloud what the noise was, unable to see the group of marines only a few paces away, awaiting the order to attack. 

Just as Bubby opened his mouth to give it, there was a sudden blow to his back, knocking him off-balance. Not enough to send him to the floor, but startling him as he whipped around to try and face his assailant. There was a surprised yelp from Gordon, Bubby realizing they were closer in proximity than he thought. “Hey!” He snapped — either to whoever just shoved him or Gordon, he didn’t really know, they could’ve been one and the same — “What the _fuck_ did you just—” 

He was roughly cut off by a shout in reply, and even in the dark he could see Tommy frantically gesturing his way, blood running cold before he could even register the words coming out of his mouth. “THERE IT IS! That — that _creature_!” His scream was bloodcurdling, like pent up anger and terror was boiling over in an instant — anger and terror Bubby didn’t even know he’d inspired. “The one that’s been killing everyone! Get it!” 

The rage in Tommy’s voice that Bubby didn’t even think he was capable of was enough to silence him for a moment, but the moment was all that was necessary as he felt hands roughly grab him by the arms to haul him forward. Only then did he begin kicking, hearing his own screaming almost completely drowning out the surprised gasp from Benrey and the panicked shouts of his name from Dr. Coomer and Gordon. 

“NO! No — you fucking _brat!_ ” He snapped, managing to wretch a hand free and futilely swipe it in Tommy’s direction — hoping to either land a hit or allow any of his teammates to grasp it and pull him free. He found neither, only able to scream more obscenities at that _selfish fucking brat, what the fuck did Bubby ever do to him?!_ until he was knocked off guard by a dizzying blow to the temple, one that left an audible cracking sound as he hit the ground head first. 

His vision exploded with stars, illuminating the pitch-black room as the pain immobilized him long enough to be lifted and thrown down again like a ragdoll. “Fffucker!” He spat, again, unsure who to, desperate for someone to defend him, gun these soldiers down like they’d gunned down hundreds of others, why were they just letting it happen?! “ _Help m—_ ” 

He was cut off by another strike, this time to the face, and he could hear something fleshy break, alongside a part of his glasses snapping. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to be Gordon here, Gordon the one being beaten into a pulp, breaking his glasses, why had it gone wrong like this, why _Tommy_ , wh — 

There was a metal scrape of a knife being unsheathed, Gordon’s shout of “HOLY _SHIT_ ” saying exactly what Bubby was thinking as it dug into his right arm. He attempted to grapple with the soldiers hounding him, but it was only so effective with only one usable arm, the other being sawed off with a combat dagger. Despite the adrenaline running through his veins, how hard he kicked and screamed, hoping everyone here knew that _Tommy Coolatta_ was the backstabbing piece of shit that did this to him, that he was going to _help them_ , the ungrateful shits, that — oh, God, he was losing so much blood already. 

He couldn’t even tell if his vision was starting to go or if it was just the state of the room, but at a point, the searing pain of his arm being sliced away began to dull, alongside his other senses, and the last sensation he could feel before passing out was being dragged away by two marines at his side, with no sign of rescue. 

It could’ve been anyone, he thought numbly. It would’ve been so easy to call for _anyone’s_ death back there — shit, even Benrey’s, buddy-buddy with them as he was. There was no allyship with these soldiers — just the hope that they would take their sacrifice and spare everyone else. It was a risky investment to begin with, getting all five of the people the HECU wanted dead the _most_ in the same room. 

Maybe that was why nobody helped. 

It was better than the possibility that they just didn’t want to. 

* * *

That… 

...was not supposed to happen. 

Like. Holy shit. It wasn’t what Benrey was _going_ for, at least. He was gonna get to laugh at seeing Gordon get roughed up a bit, go on with his day, get to go home with the others. Probably play some video games when he got there. Heat up some leftovers. Whatever. 

Bubby getting his arm chopped off was not in the memo. Like, this was the kind of thing Benrey _might_ come up with, but he didn’t. He had no motivations except seeing Gordon get his just desserts for killing people and yelling a lot (because if you kill people then killing you back is probably the reasonable thing to do). So whatever happened just now wasn’t him. It was all… 

...Tommy? Right, this was Tommy. Everyone seemed to still be processing what they’d just witnessed. The screams still echoed in the air, and no words had been uttered yet. Benrey awaited _that_ shitstorm with bated breath. He turned to the scientist in question, who was shaking with anger. 

It was. Uncanny. Tommy and anger didn’t go together. Not ever. “Hey, so, uh,” Benrey began, not really sure _where_ to, smacking his lips in thought. “Sucks to be him, ri—” 

“ _Tommy_.” Gordon sounded like he had to force the name out, his eyes wide, somewhere between terrified and angry. This was going to be something — Tommy was the only person Benrey didn’t think he’d ever snapped at. “Tommy, what… what the _fuck_ was that.” His voice was low and trembling — Benrey didn’t know him well enough to determine if that was mostly stress, confusion, or fear, but he took a step back from Tommy in a rare display of the latter. 

The other scientist didn’t seem to hear, still panting and glaring off into the point where Bubby once stood. Benrey hummed a staccato blue Sweet Voice note his way, which seemed to jog his attention as he whipped around to face his friends. Another expression Benrey didn’t really know well enough to determine crossed his face, and he hung his head low and sunk into himself a little. 

“Instinct.” He mumbled, sounding like a scolded child as he scuffed the concrete floor with his shoe. “He was gonna hurt you, Mr. Freeman, I’m sorry…” 

Gordon’s wide eyes went to Benrey, then Coomer, for answers. The latter didn’t look as shaken up by this as Benrey expected him to, but his ability to blatantly ignore everything going on around him seemed to rival Benrey’s at times. “Ah! He’s right, Dr. Freeman!” He stated, maybe a bit too cheerfully. “Dr. Bubby and Benrey were planning to have you diced up like an Irish stew!” He clasped his hands, oblivious to the dawning horror on Gordon’s face. “The military is very low on rations, you see.” 

“Aww, dang.” Benrey droned, not sure where Coomer pulled _that_ explanation from, but it was close enough to the truth. “Ya got us.” 

“ _WHAT?_ ” Gordon began to hyperventilate, backing away from the rest of the team in what looked like what was gonna be his greatest freakout yet. His eyes bulged, darting across the room as he backed himself into a wall. “They were…” His voice was a frantic whisper, the gravity of the situation seeming to hit him all at once, “...and, and you didn’t…” 

Tommy began to approach, only to be met with a frantic wave of the hand away. He frowned, stilling midstep, before shaking his head. “They said it was gonna be you there, Mr. Freeman, but I, um, I, I, uh —” He wrung his hands in the sleeves of his lab coat, blinking away the starts of tears. “I couldn’t… get ‘em to stop, so I just, so I, um, I…” 

“You could’ve _told me!_ ” Gordon snapped back, his voice cracking as he realized that he wasn’t safe with any of these people, dropping into a heap on the floor as he continued to gasp for air. 

“Oh, dear, Gordon, your breathing is awfully shallow!” Coomer unhelpfully butted in. “Perhaps you should get comfortable and slowly breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth!” 

“Dude, do _not_ tell me how to breathe right now, I think I have every fucking right to be freaking out!” Gordon seethed, his hands tangling into his hair, balling into fists and coming out with knotted clumps. “Bubby just — you just killed him! Or did —” he feebly stammered for his words for a moment, but none came, “— _God knows what_ to him!” 

“I mean.” Benrey hummed, feeling the need to jump in. “Wasn’t the plan.” He shrugged his shoulders. It was a shame, but nowhere near as much of a deal as Gordon made it out to be. He supposed, though, that _was_ typical behavior for the physicist. “Sucks t’be him, though.” 

“We could’ve dealt with this like _adults!_ What is _wrong_ with you?!” Of all the times Gordon snapped at his teammates, this felt the most visceral, and even Benrey could tell, sitting himself down in a corner to wait out the screaming match. 

Tommy recoiled like a kicked puppy. “I, I didn’t know what t’ do, I wanted to help…” 

There was the metallic scuffling sound of Gordon getting to his feet, preparing to rush towards Tommy, only to be swiftly interrupted by Coomer stepping between them. “Let’s not act rashly, Gordon! That’s a friend you’re talking to!” There was his usual jolly and matter-of-fact speaking style — in fact, Benrey remembered him using that exact phrasing before — but there was a frightened undercurrent, like he didn’t know what’d happen if he _couldn’t_ console him. Gordon just gritted his teeth, still trembling, but stepped back. 

“…right.” Gordon exhaled, the anger in his voice giving way to exhaustion. “Friend. Right.” He dropped his head into his hands. “I… _fuck_. D’ you think there’s any saving him? Bubby, I mean. I just. It all happened so fast, I didn’t know what to do, and part of me just thought it was...” 

He trailed off. 

“Thought it was what, Gordon?” Coomer asked. 

He shut his eyes, slightly shaking his head. “... part of the prank. I mean. Wouldn’t be out of line with all the fucked up shit you’ve done already, right?” He laughed numbly, sounding on the verge of tears. Benrey could just _hear_ Gordon breaking, beginning to spiral despite Coomer’s best efforts, but was more focused on batting a pebble he found on the floor back and forth. 

They should really get going, he thought, but this was a nice place to sit and chill if not. 

“Ah, well,” Coomer began, clicking his tongue. “Dr. Bubby is a very strong man! He _is_ the perfect scientist, you know.” He let out a little chuckle, one all too dissonant with what was going on around him. “Just some violent interrogation and medical experiments, I’m sure. You can live with that!” 

Gordon’s face went pale and his lip quivered, like he was going to puke. Benrey thought it looked pretty funny. It probably would’ve been funnier if he was the one that got beaten up, but whatever. 

“Huh?” Tommy cut in, and, huh, he said that out loud, didn’t he. He just lifted his head, glowering to the others for a moment, before batting the pebble off into a corner. 

“Yeah.” He said. “Gordon was s’posed to be the one getting his shit rocked.” He didn’t really know why this was coming out of his mouth — maybe he just wanted to piss him off, or get Tommy to snap again. Regardless. “We were gonna get ‘em to kill you. And it would’ve been really cool if they did. It was gonna be the big… the big fight.” He blinked, ever-present bored expression giving way to the smallest of frowns, which only looked to infuriate Gordon more. “But then you messed it up. Chickened out.” 

Inside, though, he was laughing his ass off. How could he not? The looks on their faces were priceless, as was Coomer’s insistence that Gordon calm down next to Tommy’s stumbling back in surprise as he wordlessly pulled out his revolver and unloaded every last one of his bullets into Benrey’s body. 

God, that was his funniest freakout yet, and it’d only get _worse_. Benrey couldn’t _wait_ to watch when he eventually respawned to follow them again. 

Maybe this was better than the old plan after all. 

* * *

And here Gordon thought that Benrey being a nuisance was his worst problem to deal with here. The security guard’s blood splattered his front, but he knew by some fucked up miracle that he’d come back. He always did. There wasn’t even a point in shooting him, except maybe the hope that getting him to shut up for an hour or two was worth running out of ammo. 

He just… could _not_ stand to hear Benrey rambling about his backwards logic anymore. And yeah, that’s exactly what he wanted, to get a reaction, but Gordon didn’t think he could be blamed for being a _little_ reactive in this situation. Everyone else seemed to brush it off like some fun little adventure, to the point where he began to think he was the strange one for being freaked out at the constant danger. Even seeing harmless corpses turned his stomach, and he couldn’t bear to look them in the face, but there his teammates were, selling each other out for reasons that could’ve been easily debunked by an adult conversation. 

He still hadn’t fully absorbed what happened during that goddamn blackout. Each and every layer of it made him sick to think about for too long, but unfortunately, there wasn’t much to do _but_ think. He looked at Tommy and Dr. Coomer and only saw two people who betrayed his trust in… different, but equally traumatic, ways. 

Bubby was fucked up, probably the biggest traitor of them all, presumably the ringleader of that… what was it, Irish stew scheme? But holy shit, he didn’t deserve _that_. They were _friends_ — teammates and coworkers if not that — and the idea of someone he cared about getting viciously beaten, crippled, and hauled off to die, all for _his_ sake, was all too revolting to think about. 

But at the same time, though, it was _so_ close to being him. Tommy was the only thing keeping Gordon from being the one getting beaten into a pulp and dismembered, and for that he should’ve been thankful, but… he couldn’t be. As far as he was concerned, this all could’ve been avoided if they just… talked it out — if Tommy hadn’t decided to sneak around and take matters into his own hands. 

He was losing his grip on things. He started to miss shots, get grazed by bullets and bitten by creatures more, finding himself far too lost in his own head (and he knew that Bubby would _definitely_ shame him for that if he was still around). He just couldn’t focus — he had a limit on the amount of goddamn stress he could handle in a day and it was passed, like, twenty hours ago. And Dr. Coomer and Tommy were probably pissed at him for lagging behind, which only stressed him out _more_. 

There was a sudden burning sensation, gun dropping from his hand as he realized he’d been shot square in the arm by a soldier. Just his luck the bullet would hit one of the few spots on his suit not shielded by thick orange plating, Jesus fucking Christ. He gritted his teeth, seething as he was forced to scramble behind a wall until the last of the marines were dealt with. He couldn’t shoot with his left arm, he could barely _swing_ with his left arm. 

Shutting his eyes tight, pressing a free hand to his now fucked elbow, he let out a pained exhale, counting the seconds until the mayhem of gunfire died down. He was gonna go fucking deaf by the time all of this was over — he was focused more on living to see that time, but it was an uncomfortable addition to his list of stressors. 

He definitely had, like, PTSD or something now. Even in rooms he knew were safe, Gordon found himself studying every crevice of the walls and floors as he stepped in, for grenades or snipers or dens for aliens to crawl out of. He’d turned into the exact kind of twitchy paranoiac he would’ve made fun of just a week ago. 

Could he even… go back home, in this state? Even _if_ he made it? Would he have to be hauled off to some kind of insane asylum, leaving Joshua in the custody of an orphanage or humanitarian group? _“Yes, yes, the patient reports seeing human skeletons,”_ his imaginary doctor from his imaginary insane asylum said, _“as well as hearing gunshots when he sleeps, and fabricating being stalked by an entity called ‘Benrey’, asking him for identification…”_

“You’re not gonna find your passport over here, man.” 

Gordon was cut out of his thoughts by another voice he thought he’d imagined, but there Benrey was, back from the dead as usual, sitting on a wall with his legs dangling off the edge. He was looking down at Gordon, then glanced away when he met his gaze, presumably to watch his far more competent teammates — the ones actually getting shit done instead of sitting there having panic attacks. 

He could hear Dr. Coomer calling his name, but even as Benrey hopped down from his perch to rejoin the others, Gordon couldn’t bring himself to his feet yet. Honestly, he just wanted to curl up and die — beginning to wish that Tommy just let Bubby go through with it. 

It couldn’t have been any worse than this, right? 

* * *

Something was very wrong with Dr. Freeman! Perhaps it was a case of The Crumbles, which Dr. Coomer had once read about on Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone could edit. He would offer a hand to be a supportive friend, but he realized quickly that Gordon didn’t want it. His trust in the group had been irreparably damaged since the loss of Dr. Bubby — who was missed every day — whether from the loss itself or the knowledge of what their plans truly were, Coomer didn’t know. 

Seeing Gordon in pain, though, hurt more than anything. They were friends, after all, and he had always been drawn to the physicist — like it was his purpose to guide him, and it felt very, very wrong to find himself incapable of doing so. He understood, on a base level, why — Gordon was a very emotional person, who seemed to see the world with much higher stakes than Coomer did. He worked himself into panic over having to jump ledges, much less witnessing gore and death of every stripe, but still — was going along with a plot to have him killed _really_ such a big hurdle in their friendship? Coomer just wanted to comfort him! 

Besides, it seemed like a good idea at the time. He had seen outside Black Mesa, and from there connected the dots and came to the unfortunate conclusion that Gordon was the reason for his suffering — much like Bubby had, albeit for a very different reason. He could feel something _happening_ to his head every time he went near the other, saying nothing of what happened every time he went to sleep. He didn’t think the others knew of his new-found revelation — **_nothing was out there_** — but the fresh trauma, combined with the realization that Gordon was the one behind it, certainly made him more receptive to their idea. 

Now, though? He didn’t want to inflict that upon him. Gordon didn’t seem aware of what he was doing, of how the world revolved around him in the most terrifying way imaginable — so Coomer continued to view him as the bright young physicist he always had. He even reminded Coomer of himself when he was young! 

(But he didn’t like thinking about that too hard — according to what he’d seen, there had never been a world outside Black Mesa, but if there wasn’t, where did those memories come from?) 

Besides, even _if_ there was any resentment left, Dr. Coomer figured Gordon had gone through enough to repay it. He hadn’t lost any limbs — 

(...why was _that_ the hypothetical that came to mind?) 

— but he was in the worst mental state Coomer had seen yet. He was quieter, which wasn’t a good sign, but felt far more high-strung, quicker to snap at his friends and run away to cool off on his own. His slower reaction time in battle didn’t go unnoticed either, and Coomer was happy to cover fire when not shouting quips of encouragement, but it was still… concerning. He wasn’t the Gordon that Coomer knew, when there was already so little he could say he did. 

And Gordon didn’t seem intent on talking to him about it, so the most Coomer could do was think to himself. There was an easy repetition to traversing Black Mesa — he heard Gordon grumbling at one point about how “fucked up” it was that killing people had become so second-nature here, but Coomer was thankful for it. They were all either some form of clone or damned bootlickers (as Dr. Bubby so eloquently put it), so it didn’t matter much. They were all cannon fodder, and some part of Coomer knew that they weren’t sentient — just obstacles put there for Gordon’s sake. 

(…that was a cruel way to put it. Why did he say that?) 

But omnipotence had made Coomer cocky, just as stress made Gordon sloppy, and neither realized this until it brought the military right to them. 

“Oh, dear!” He quipped as the barrel of a large gun pressed into his back, ushering him and the rest of the Science Team along. “I knew Dr. Bubby didn’t have enough meat on his bones. It turns out _we_ were the Irish stew all along, Gordon!” 

* * *

Tommy was starting to prefer the last timeline to this one, in all honesty. 

This one was beginning to feel like the worst case scenario, as if the first hadn’t been already. Even when Gordon’s arm was spared, he was in no better of a mental state, and sticking together solved none of the Science Team’s problems with infighting — it seemed to worsen them, in fact. There were so many unspoken arguments that the tension in the air between Gordon and Tommy alone could probably be cut by a knife. 

And that stung the most. Mr. Freeman was everyone’s hero, the one Tommy rewound time to _help!_ And he just… didn’t get that! He didn’t want to do what he did — Bubby had been his friend too — but at that moment, there were no other options. He hadn’t gone through all of this effort just to see Mr. Freeman get hurt again. 

Still, though… sacrificing Bubby was a move Tommy regretted more and more. Bubby probably could’ve fought off the soldiers restraining them and taking their guns. Hell, he probably would’ve immolated them where they stood before they could even lay a finger on the Science Team. They’d be on their way to the Lambda Lab, home free, instead of having their hands tied and being pressed against walls to be shot like unruly dogs. 

Which, Tommy supposed in the military’s eyes, they were. Unruly dogs mauling everything and making a mess of a government-funded research facility, no doubt going to spread to the public what happened within its walls. That was what this was — an unholy blend of making sure no trace of the Resonance Cascade remained, and just plain _vengeance_. He’d seen how eager they were to get their hands on Bubby, after all. 

Maybe it was the taste of power that rewinding for the first time had given him — learning for the first time what living like a God was like, or maybe he was just numb, but Tommy felt an eerie calm in the face of his untimely demise. He and Dr. Coomer both, it seemed, as he glanced to his side to find the old scientist unusually silent. Tommy had _his_ reasons to be calm — death didn’t mean much to a demigod with time powers — but what were Coomer’s? 

His heartstrings tugged for Gordon, who continued his feeble attempts at reasoning with the men holding them. The panic was audible in his voice, words getting caught in his throat between bouts of hyperventilation. “We’re scientists, man, I swear, we’re not _trained,_ wedidn’t do anything that wasn’t — that couldn’t be considered self-defense.” He wriggled in his restraints, in what Tommy couldn’t tell was an attempt at escape or just shuddering with fear. “We were shooting the troops ‘cause they shot first, and the air strikes, and, and we were just — defending ourselves, we’re just scientists, _please_ —” 

Tommy forced himself to tune out of that particular rant the moment he heard a gun cocking followed by Gordon’s choked plea of _“ I have a son”_. Instead, he just stared ahead at the concrete wall of one of Black Mesa’s many sub-level bunkers. 

“Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” He could hear Benrey joke to no-one in particular, preparing to die for the… second? time that day as a large, gloved hand pressed him up against the wall. His helmet had been confiscated alongside his weaponry, revealing very short (yet still somehow very unkempt) black hair Tommy didn’t think he’d seen before. It wasn’t quite _dignity_ he was facing death with, but it was… something — not Gordon, at least. 

_This wasn’t what was supposed to happen._

Well, _obviously_ , but Tommy kept thinking it nonetheless. 

If saving Gordon didn’t fix anything, then… what would? The Resonance Cascade was, quite literally, Hell on Earth. The body count was immeasurable, and it would only continue to climb if the creatures made it into the real world. The possibility that the HECU was about to execute the last surviving workers at Black Mesa Research Facility wasn’t one that was lost on Tommy. He hadn’t seen another living scientist or guard for a while. 

He shut his eyes tight — he wasn’t _expecting_ a fantastical last-second escape, but knowing his teammates, it wouldn’t quite _surprise_ him either. But even if that _did_ happen… What was waiting for them afterwards? He didn’t know if the rest of the world was affected by this yet — Tommy’d come home to a wasteland, for all he knew. And maybe it’d be easy for his Dad to just drop him into another time period, but the same couldn’t be said for his friends, who’d still lost loved ones and livelihoods. No matter what came out of this, he was growing painfully certain they’d be doomed. 

Unless _nothing_ came out of it. 

It may have just been his life flashing before his eyes as the first gunshot rang out, but he remembered the hours before the explosion. For the first time, they were all happy, with no death or aliens to worry about, no need to backstab or betray each other. Just… happy co-workers, and it felt so far away that it made Tommy want to cry. 

But they could return to it, he had the power to _make_ them — why hadn’t he considered it before? 

The cuffs were too tight to manage anything other than a flex of the hand, but that was all Tommy needed. The world went gold, the suffering of his friends suspended in motion, and as he exhaled, he could watch it all come undone, moment by moment. 

It would take more energy than going back a mere few hours had, but it was fine. If this was the only thing Tommy could ever manage with his power, he could give it up and be satisfied. 

They were going to be happy again — no more aliens, no more soldiers, just chats about dreams and sharing soda. 

It was going to be perfect. 

And Tommy was going to keep it that way forever. 


	2. Hold Still, Focus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are! Chapter 2!
> 
> I'm... so unbelievably happy at how excited people are for this fic! I'm so glad!!! I was real worried about this idea, but it's very dear to me and I'm thrilled people are excited - I've definitely got my plans for this fic, hehe. As of posting this, I have finished Chapter 3, and we're at 40 pages on the Google Doc... fun!!!
> 
> My Tumblr is @bandtrees as always, if you wanna hit me up or just... follow me for my hyperfixations, lmao.
> 
> Enjoy!

### HALF-LIFE VR:  
SELF AWARE AI  
ACT 1 PART 1

Gordon blinked, taking in his surroundings. He was standing in a hallway — not just any hallway, but one he’d walked through on his way to the test chamber every day. Wait, speaking of, he was running late, wasn’t he? Shit, what was he doing just standing around?

(Hold on. What happened? This wasn’t where they were in the game. ...Was he supposed to know that?)

He couldn’t greet the security guards he walked past, getting something of an uneasy feeling from them. Maybe they were just looking at him funny. One of them’s fists were balled, which wasn’t really encouraging.

(There wasn’t any blood on him. There had definitely been blood on him just a second ago. And why could he move his arm so well?)

“Hey.”

Gordon froze at the sound of a… familiar? voice, turning around to find a dead-eyed security guard walking his way. He blinked again as the man approached, one of his fellow guards moving to press against a wall and observe the conversation. Was he being held up? Did something happen?

(That was Benrey, he knew Benrey, but what he didn’t know was if this was some kind of glitch or if the game was really just… like this.)

“Can I see your passport?”

 _Passport?_ There came a sense of dread with those words. Gordon fumbled for a second, feeling along his HEV suit for any kind of company ID that could suffice. He’d never had to bring his passport to work before — that was… a weird protocol out of nowhere. But more importantly…

(Fuck it. He’d hazard a shot in the dark.)

His current expression — one of innocent confusion — dropped in an instant as everything came back to him. He’d just been standing in a military bunker with his hands tied, and the last thing he remembered was preparing to die — and seeing it happen to the man in front of him. “Hey, I’m not, like, insane or anything, right?” He blurted, gesturing about, finding some kind of relief in getting to express his confusion out loud. “‘Cause the last thing I remember is you getting your brains blown out by the US military.”

The look on Benrey’s face showed he did, in fact, think he was insane. That told him all he needed to know — if _Benrey_ thought you were crazy, then you were far beyond saving. The security guard blinked in astonishment, his eyebrows knitting together. “You threatening me, man? I just work here.” He adjusted the name tag on his vest. “You have your passport?”

(Was this really just a bug — some kind of non-standard game over? It wouldn’t kill him to play along. If nobody else knew what was up, he couldn’t afford to fuck up their AIs even _more_ irreparably with the knowledge of… dying in a past life, or whatever this was.)

“I — no, I don’t.” Gordon sighed, realizing this was going to _continue_ to be the longest day of his life. “Sorry, I’ve just had… a weird, fucky day so far.” He gave an exhausted, humorless laugh. “But, uh, my passport’s in my locker, I think. I can go get it for you.”

“That’s suspicious.” Benrey stated, without skipping a beat. Gordon didn’t miss that all too much. “I’m gonna have to follow you, sir. Making sure you’re not…” There was a beat as he smacked his lips in thought. “Carryin’ any weapons.”

Gordon had to bite back the knee-jerk reply of _I wish_. His shoulders slumped, and though he tried to hide the exhaustion in his voice, the “yeah, sure thing.” that came out of his mouth sounded positively miserable.

It all felt so familiar, and yet so far away. He didn’t want to run any later than he already was, so it wasn’t like he could really stop and _absorb_ his surroundings, but it was still… strange, to see Black Mesa bustling with people. The walls were clean of blood, everyone going about their business, painfully oblivious to what would come in just under an hour.

(Not like he could actually tell them any of that. It was a predetermined cutscene. There was no stopping it, only prolonging it.)

It was a surprise to see Dr. Coomer looking so pristine when they passed him in the locker room — Gordon was all too used to seeing his friends covered in gore and grit. He smiled their way, adjusting the collar of his blue button-up with one hand and waving with the other. “Hello, Gordon! Hello, Security Chief Benadryl!”

Gordon wheezed. That was a new one.

“Careful, sir.” Benrey replied, pointing a finger Gordon’s way as he started rummaging through his locker. “This guy’s a lunatic. Hiding weapons. Saw him walkin’ in with a knife.”

“Oh, dear! Dr. Freeman? Really?”

“Ya.” How Benrey was _anyone’s_ chief when he talked like _that_ was an absolute mystery to Gordon. “So I’m keepin’ an eye on him. For your protection. You’re welcome.”

At least this answered a question that had always been in the back of his mind — if not over his passport, Benrey would’ve found a different reason to harass him. That was… somehow the most and least comforting thing he’d heard all day.

“Here.” There the blasted thing was — _Gordon Freeman, Ph.D._ Swear to God, he was going to keep this on him every waking second from now on. He stuck his passport in Benrey’s face, relishing the motion way more than anyone who had to pretend to not know him should.

The security guard just blinked slowly, giving Gordon a look like he was wasting his time. “Expired.” He stated, looking over Gordon’s shoulder and immediately elbowing past him to scramble into his locker.

“Hey—!!”

“Trying to distract me. ‘s not gonna work.” He just started rummaging through Gordon’s stuff, whose stomach turned at the idea of _anything_ he owned being touched by Benrey. He roughly ripped a shirt right off the hanger, and it clattered to the floor. He just stared at it blankly for a moment, before looking back to Gordon. “Know you got guns in here.”

Coomer blanched. “Guns, Dr. Freeman?!”

Lightly pushing Benrey out of the way to allow him to shut his locker, Gordon just let out a long, pained sigh. “No. No, no guns. He’s making shit up.” This was already exhausting, and the Resonance Cascade hadn’t even _started_. Maybe this time around Benrey would latch onto someone else to bug — he had to bite his tongue with a snicker at the thought of sending Benrey after Bubby. It was a better punishment for his betrayal than whatever the fuck _Tommy_ thought he was doing.

“Ah!” Dr. Coomer nodded, seeming to get it, thank God. Gordon wondered if he’d actually… known of Benrey’s shenanigans, before all of this — buggy as he was, he at least laid off upon seeing the joke was tired. “Well, don’t let me hold you up. You have a big day in the test chamber, you know!”

Glancing to the clock, trying to ignore Benrey trying to brute force his way back into his locker with a bobby pin, he was running even more behind schedule than he thought. Knowing none of it would matter soon was the only thing keeping him from freaking out about getting in trouble — if he got fired for being late to work the day the world ended, that really wasn’t _his_ problem.

Still, though, he had to act it, even when pretending he hadn’t seen this all before was easier said than done. If nothing else, it would give Benrey an _actual_ reason to be suspicious of him.

“Yeah, big day. We’ll get going now,” he gave Benrey a look, and thankfully he tucked the bobby pin away, mumbling something about making sure Gordon didn’t steal anything from the testing chamber. “See you later, Dr. Coomer.”

* * *

Holy shit, did Tommy need some fucking caffeine to get through this. Like, more than usual, anyway. The carbonation of what had to be his nine millionth soda can today burned going down — he thought he’d built up some kind of tolerance, but apparently not. His tongue felt like it was just a slip away from dissolving off, if the enamel of his teeth didn’t first.

Pressing the back of his hand to his forehead as he swallowed, he found he was sweating like crazy. He wasn’t sure if that was the sign of a caffeine overdose or just his anxiety — both the anxiety of just coming back from being executed by the military _and_ the anxiety of needing to make sure it didn’t happen again.

Shutting his eyes, his mind still didn’t shut up. Even when he tried to remind himself that _it’s safe now, the soldiers are gone, everyone’s alive_ , it was only… what, eight minutes ago, that he’d been pressed against a wall to be executed and dumped in a ditch somewhere. It was only eight minutes ago that he’d watched the soldiers leave bruises on Benrey as they stripped him of his helmet and weapons, saw Coomer’s empty expression as he accepted his fate, and heard Gordon pleading through tears for his life.

Eight minutes was _not_ enough time to process that.

Tommy knew he wasn’t there — he was just in the break room, he could smell someone heating up lasagna, he could see one of the older scientists tacking down another piece of paper to the corkboard, but his brain couldn’t seem to accept it. Was that a side effect of time travel? G-Man never told him about it, but then again, Tommy never thought to learn until now.

The aluminum of the soda can pressed against his forehead did little to soothe him. He was sweltering beneath his long-sleeved shirt and lab coat, but knew the AC was on. This was just another messed up trauma reaction, probably. Taking in a deep breath and tossing the can out, he had to get back to work — he had to be extra alert, had to make sure it didn’t happen _again_.

Maybe he could get Benrey to do his job and guard the test chamber. He was one of the only few people the security guard listened to, even if he didn’t really know _why_ , but he was thankful for that.

Just so long as he didn’t think too hard about the other’s betrayal, or, alternatively, the sound of his head knocking against the wall as a soldier blew his brains out. Neither were particularly pleasant.

He turned to go, thoughts still uncharacteristically disjointed and grim as he made his way down one of Black Mesa’s many meandering hallways. He had to get it together — taking a moment to put in more effort than was necessary to relax his shoulders and plaster on his usual empty expression as familiar heavy footsteps rounded the corner.

Gordon Freeman, in the flesh. (And Benrey, hanging off his arm.) It was strange to see them both so… clean. Gordon’s HEV suit was spotless, his ponytail neat, glasses straight, and freckled face free of bruises and filth. And Benrey _always_ looked exhausted, but even he appeared more alert than he had nine minutes ago. No dents in his helmet or dirt on his clothes, his bored expression closer to the one usually worn by a 24-hour security guard than one of cold dead apathy.

They looked like normal coworkers, the annoyance already prevalent in Mr. Freeman’s expression aside. It wasn’t the annoyance of constant psychological torment — just the annoyance of being around an irritating acquaintance. Something in that brought a real smile to Tommy’s face.

Oh, how he wanted to keep it that way forever. Maybe, given time, they’d become real friends, and then Tommy would get to hang out with them both at once! That was an exciting thought.

“Hello!” He called with a wave, making Gordon glance over. He had to remember they hadn’t technically met yet — and something was just so _nice_ to Tommy about knowing someone’s deepest secrets while _they_ didn’t even know his name. It was comforting, _predictable_. Not like having to watch someone sleep because they might die from an infection in the middle of it.

Benrey gave a tired wave back. Gordon ran a hand through his hair before practically zipping past. “Hey, sorry man, I’m running late, catch you in a bit, though.” There was that motormouth Tommy vastly preferred to the tranquil fury of a cold shoulder, but the contents of it weren’t exactly inspiring. He turned on his heel to call out again.

“I— I heard, um, I-I-I heard the testing chamber, i-i-it’s,” _think of something think of something oh god the caffeine is rotting your brain_ “...not up to code!” That sounded right. It was probably something he’d say anyway, stutter being 10x worse than usual aside. “I, i—it’s… dangerous, t’day…” It was far too short notice to actually get the test _cancelled_ , so fear mongering was his safest bet

That made Gordon stop. “Dangerous?” He didn’t look quite _skeptical_ , just confused, arching an eyebrow. “I haven’t heard anyone say that. We’ve been using that chamber for, like, a hundred years, probably.”

“Yyyeah, but, um,” Tommy wracked his brain for some technobabble to pull from Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone could edit. “It’s the… we gotta…”

He mentally spun a wheel, “…reroute the…” threw a dart, “auxiliary,” drew a name from a hat, “gear,” then thought of a number, “array.”

Yeah.

 _“ Not the auxiliary gear array, ‘s my favorite part…”_ Benrey whispered, making Gordon snort.

“Look, uh, I appreciate it, bud, but I am. So behind schedule I think I’ll accept an unrouted _auxiliary gear array_ ,” Tommy could hear the air quotes in his voice, “if it keeps me from getting fired.” There was that patronization that Tommy didn’t really miss. He was a 36 year-old nuclear engineer, how could Mr. Freeman ever think he didn’t know he was talking about?

Well. He _did_ just throw some random words together, and Gordon didn’t have any real impression of him yet. Maybe some patronization was in order.

“That’s just how we do it at Black Mesa.” Gordon added with a laugh. “Besides, I’m… pretty confident in my safety, got the most high tech radiation suit in the world.” He gestured to the suit in question, looking far more durable and imposing without the scrapes and dents from bullets. “Not really confident in _his_ ,” he jerked a thumb back to Benrey, who was silent, “but, he really wants to follow me, so guess that’s his problem.”

There was a shrug, and then he was off — “See ya.” and wait, no, no, no, he was going to the test chamber, it was going to happen _again, no, no, no_ —

“Wuh — Mister Fr — _Mister!_ I-it’s dangerous, you’re gonna—” Tommy stumbled after the duo as they exited, but Gordon either didn’t hear or thought nothing of it. He halted after a couple of seconds, catching his breath as the world spun. He hadn’t even exerted himself, but his mind was going a mile a minute — he must’ve looked like a complete lunatic, both to Mr. Freeman and to any bystanders.

He’d messed it up _again_ , hadn’t he? Mr. Freeman was going into the chamber, with _Benrey_ , and the experiment would go wrong again because that’s what Benrey did last time, and everyone would die and they’d all be stuck together and… and…

Trying again wouldn’t hurt, right? Through his trembling and blurry vision, Tommy was able to focus just enough to let the world go gold once more. His worries melted with the power. Yes, yes… there was nothing to worry about anymore. He’d do it _right_ this time. This one was just… a test! A test, that’s what it was, to make sure he could really do it.

What wrong did another go do, anyway? Mr. Freeman would never be able to tell.

* * *

### HALF-LIFE VR:  
SELF AWARE AI  
ACT 1 PART 1

Huh. Hadn’t Benrey just been doing something? He felt like he’d just zoned out for a second. Adjusting his helmet, trying to wrack his brain he admittedly so rarely used, he figured this game was buggier than he thought.

Whatever — weird memory lapses weren’t anything new. He couldn’t worry about that, not when he could’ve sworn he just saw a guy in an HEV suit wander past. He hadn’t seen him around work before, but by the uniform, he had to be doing something important. It was only fair to ask him for his ID.

That was all Benrey’s dumb programmed purpose was. Spout questions about ID. Be a general annoyance. Probably die the moment things go downhill. The kind of character a player saw and just couldn’t wait for a chance to throw to the wolves. A “Red Shirt”, according to various gaming forums.

He said that like he didn’t follow that purpose to a T. It was _hilarious_ , okay? He wasn’t just a regular nuisance — he was _designed_ to be a nuisance. And he did it damn well.

“Hey.” He raised his voice to call after the new guy, rounding the corner he’d disappeared down. “Can I see your…”

For once, Benrey was puzzled into silence.

“…pass…port…”

That was the HEV suit guy, alright, but somehow not as Benrey knew him. Standing in the middle of the hallway, his eyes were practically bugging out of his head, darting from end to end of the room before settling on his hands. He looked like he was about to jump out of his skin — pathetically lost at _best_. Benrey could laugh, but more importantly, he _definitely_ didn’t look stable enough to work with radiation.

Something about it skeeved him out big time. Benrey could recognize the look in his eyes, the reddened tinge, as someone who’d been staring at a screen for, like, a decade. He probably didn’t sleep a wink last night, too busy playing some nerd shit like _Kane & Lynch 2._

He looked up at Benrey with those freaky red bug eyes, reaching a hand out that the security guard took a step back from. Okay, this guy was nuts. Either a worker having a bad day or some escaped asylum patient that managed to crawl into an HEV suit.

“Benrey.” The stress was audible in his voice, and Benrey got the feeling he didn’t just read his ID to grab his name. “Benrey, Benrey, please… I. I know you’re just gonna say something completely batshit but I need you to tell me the last thing you remember.”

Whuh?

“Whuh?” Benrey just blinked at him. “You crazy?” Crazy people usually just admitted they were crazy, right? “I was just gonna ask about your—”

“Passport, yeah, I know, I know. Shit.” He shut his eyes tight, pinching the bridge of his nose. The unspoken — but all too visible — stress was more annoying to Benrey than anything. What was this dude’s deal, even? “I don’t have a passport. I have _never_ had a passport _ever._ I know you’re gonna follow me around, but I’m _really_ not in the mood, and I’ll give you, like…”

There was a moment’s pause as the guy seemed to think. “… _twenty_ dollars if you leave me alone.”

This was incredibly unprofessional. Benrey was the _chief_ of security, who should not have legitimately been considering twenty dollars of hush money from the most suspicious-looking person he’d ever seen in his life. Who knew what he’d do if let around the other scientists? He didn’t even have his passport!

…it’d be _really_ funny, though. And if he _did_ pull something, Benrey could definitely get a sick-ass party story about it.

And twenty dollars.

He could see the dude’s expression waver as Benrey realized he hadn’t actually said anything in response yet. Glancing him up and down, figuring this would have some unforeseen consequences and then remembering a stand-up bit he saw once about giving the crazy guy at work a piece of candy to make him spare your life when he snapped, and then thinking this was pretty comparable, Benrey just nodded. “‘Kay.”

A surprised cackle left the other’s mouth, the sound of a man positively at his wit’s end as he turned to leave unaccompanied.

There was definitely a story there, but not one Benrey cared to unpack. It’d probably ruin the fun.

* * *

Could nobody here do their jobs right?! Uuuugh. Once more, the perfect scientist was left to clean up everyone else’s mess. Why didn’t they just put him in charge of _everything?_

“I’m gonna need a wrench in here!” Bubby called over his shoulder, knowing full well none of the lazy layabouts he worked with would help. It wasn’t like this was a _challenge_ , but God, he was beginning to wish he could just shove one of the other scientists into these open circuits instead. See how _they_ liked it.

He was too focused on messing with the sparking machinery to hear a voice calling from across the room. It took hearing it say his name to finally turn, and there today’s test subject was. Gordon… Feetman? That sounded about right.

“Don’t fuck with me right now, you’ve got a test in, like, ten minutes.” Bubby stated before the other could even get a word in. There was a moment’s pause as he resumed tinkering, realized he was still missing a vital tool, and outstretched a hand in Gordon’s direction. “Pass me a wrench before you do, though.”

“Oh, uh — sure thing.” There was the sound of scuffling and rummaging through various drawers and compartments. “Here.” Gordon’s hand brushed his as the wrench passed his way, and as Bubby made some noise of thanks, he stopped and realized Gordon was just. Staring at him, like he didn’t think he was real.

He looked almost mournful, like he was looking at Bubby but seeing something even grander. Or maybe he was just a creep. The latter seemed more likely. Considering his options for getting a restraining order filed, all Bubby could do to break the unnerving silence was clear his throat with a cough. “Eyes off the goods, will ya?”

Gordon cringed, averted his eyes, and mumbled an apology. “Uh, a-about that, though, I’m. Not sure we should go through with the test today. Like, I’unno what’s going on _there_ ,” he gestured to the smoking computer parts Bubby was messing around with, “but there’s a guard wandering around who I think is gonna try and get in and fuck it up. I mean, I gave him twenty dollars so he _wouldn’t_ , but I can’t trust Benrey as far as I can throw him.” He punctuated with a tired and nervous little chuckle.

Bubby knew… _of_ Benrey. He didn’t think he’d ever interacted with him directly, but still heard horror stories about A) how shitty of a boss he was, and B) how he simultaneously treated his job as security chief way too seriously and as some kind of joke. Fucking up a test checked out with what little Bubby’d heard, but looking at Gordon, this was probably just as likely some excuse to skip work after not sleeping a wink.

“I’m not in charge of the test. I’m just watching to make sure you don’t fuck it up.” That was a safe answer. Bubby’s superiors could probably get him lobotomized for missing out on such an important work day — _and that wasn’t an exaggeration_ , he thought, if the various surgery scars marring his skin were any indicator. “The one you should be talking to is Dr. Coolatta.”

He hoped the bite wasn’t audible in his voice. Bubby didn’t like many of his co-workers — they were either talentless hacks who couldn’t do their jobs or know-it-alls who never shut up about how they _could_. It wasn’t a particularly well-hidden rumor that Thomas “Tommy” B. Coolatta, bright as he was, climbed this high up in Black Mesa on nepotism alone. Bubby knew he was a fine guy, if not quiet and stuck in his own daydreaming most of the time, but there was just some resentment towards the other for his position — or more accurately, the lack of work it took him to get there.

Not like Gordon had any way of knowing that, though. He blinked at the name, lip twitching as if he didn’t know if he was allowed to laugh or not. It wasn’t professional, but then again, neither was the last name _Coolatta_. “Dr. Cool — who?”

“Tommy Coolatta. Real tall guy. Think he’s on lunch break right about now, hangs around the cafeteria. Just picture what you think someone who willingly named himself _Coolatta_ would look like.”

Turning back to his work, Bubby could hear Gordon’s voice falter — “…God, of _course…_ ” — whether at whatever image his mind was conjuring, or at recognizing the man in question. “Will do. Sorry to bother, then.”

“Quit dilly dallying and find him before you get even _more_ behind schedule.” Bubby snapped back, not quite intending to sound as harsh as he did, but whatever. Gordon turned and went. Whatever came of the test, he’d find out sooner rather than later. Hopefully he’d fix this goddamn computer first…

* * *

Morale seemed to be very low this morning for such an important test! That wasn’t a good sign. Dr. Coomer hummed to himself, likely the only one in the chamber of his clones and co-workers who didn’t look like they were headed to a funeral.

 _Another day, another dollar,_ that’s what they always said here at the Black Mesa, but Dr. Coomer never saw the value in thinking about it so cynically. Learning was fun, and Dr. Coomer loved to help others learn about things! He seemed to be the only scientist with anything resembling a positive attitude about his job — always glad to help around newcomers, because he remembered being just like them!

And speaking of those newcomers he loved to help, Dr. Freeman would be today’s test subject. Coomer hoped that being a recognizable face up high in the rafters would bring the physicist some peace of mind — Gordon had passed by him earlier today without so much as a greeting, which was already a concerning skip in routine, saying nothing of how he looked pale as a sheet.

No matter! He’d be alright today. Dr. Coomer was sure of it!

The scientist next to him, though, Tommy, didn’t seem quite convinced. Staring with wide, anxious eyes through the thick safety glass guarding them from the test chamber at seemingly nothing, he looked to be prepared for disaster. Hyperaware as always of every possible OSHA code violation around him, he couldn’t quite be blamed for his nerves, but Dr. Coomer tried to reassure him that if anything went wrong, the test subject was in a thick radiation suit and the workers were behind glass built for this purpose.

Like a little kid smuggling snacks in a theatre, Coomer could spot Tommy gripping a soda can he _definitely_ wasn’t allowed to bring into the test chamber. His long fingers drummed against the aluminum — rules aside, Dr. Coomer didn’t care much about it being in here. Who could pass up some Delicious Soda to calm the nerves? So long as he shared!

Checking his watch with a frown, Coomer found Dr. Freeman was definitely running late. Thinking on it, that probably had to do with Tommy’s stress. Everything had to be perfect and up to code in the younger man’s mind, but when he got to Coomer’s age, odds were he would learn to loosen up.

The other scientist practically shot up and crushed the soda can in his grip when the familiar bright orange of an HEV suit could be seen out of the corner of their eyes. Tommy’s anxiety looked to increase tenfold in the matter of a second, and as Coomer opened his mouth to console him — “Tommy,” — his free fist balled, a muscle in his palm flexing, and

* * *

### HALF-LIFE VR:  
SELF AWARE AI  
ACT 1 P—

(Whatever, we all get the point, right?)

It happened again. One second he was stepping into the test chamber, the next the world went gold and time rewound. Again.

And he was here in this hallway.

Again.

Gordon barely had time to process it — if this was what the game was, he would have no time for respite. The same thirty minutes, hour, _whatever_ , for every hour of his life. He was already getting dizzy, eyelids still burning from that dazzling gold when he heard a familiar “hey” from around the corner.

He couldn’t do this. He could _not_ keep doing this. Throwing any semblance of sanity to the wind, he turned on his heel and _ran_ , unable to think too hard about the strange looks he received from —

(the NPCs)

— his coworkers. It wasn’t even Benrey he was running from, really — just the idea of having this conversation over and over again until he keeled over from the sleep deprivation. He couldn’t handle it. Somehow the security guard’s completely unpredictable psychological torment was preferable to this. What the fuck was _this_ , even?

Finding a relatively unoccupied room, he was free to throw himself against the wall and be hit with all nine million of his overwhelmed thoughts at once.

He just needed to think. He needed a minute, even when every minute seemed to be occupied by this — weird time fuckery. A moment of respite where he wasn’t being bugged about his passport or the test or the Resonance Cascade or Tommy’s betrayal which he hadn’t even fully comprehended three timelines later, to say nothing of Bubby’s betrayal from _four_ timelines ago, because he remembered it all, it was all coming back so quickly and painfully, like a gunshot wound or a knife to the arm that he was starting to _desperately_ wish he could return to.

He couldn’t pretend — he’d seen it all. He saw Tommy stop time the first time

(through the VR headset)

and he wasn’t sure about the second or third times but definitely the fourth. It was Tommy — Tommy, Tommy, definitely Tommy — but… how? Wait, no, scratch that, if Benrey could rise from the dead and teleport, then fuck it, Tommy could time travel. Gordon couldn’t question _shit_ anymore.

The question was then… why? For fun? That… couldn’t have been his thing. He wasn’t like Benrey, who would _definitely_ be rewinding time for shits and giggles if he had the ability. Tommy wasn’t a sadist. He didn’t play God for fun, but if not for fun, then why…

Gordon thought back to the first time, how he’d heard Tommy crying, and then the second, when everyone was about to die, and then the third and the fourth, right before the Resonance Cascade…

To keep him out of danger.

It was for him. It was always for him. That should’ve been a comfort, all things considered, but Gordon’s stomach only turned at the thought — Tommy controlling the course of time just to keep his _best friend Mr. Freeman_ safe. Treating him like Sunkist — cursing some poor creature with immortality for his own satisfaction. At least the dog wasn’t sentient, doomed to watch its every moment controlled like a puppet.

Gordon shut his eyes tight. Tommy killed Bubby for him, and now he was going to trap everyone in some… eternal time loop for him. He hadn’t asked for this. He didn’t ask for _any_ of this. Who was Tommy to decide what was best for him — how was this good for him, how was this good for _anyone_?! He thought, before, that if there were any of his teammates he’d _trust_ with that power, it’d probably be him, but…

…absolute power corrupted absolutely, or so he’d heard once. He dropped his head into his hands, trying to slow his breathing. He thought back to Bubby from the second run — the anger in Tommy’s eyes as he watched someone who should’ve been a friend get beaten into a pulp, dismembered, and hauled off for experimentation. He had a feeling there wasn’t reasoning with that freak, if he thought _murder_ was the best way to keep Gordon safe — if he thought trapping him in stasis was the best way to keep him happy.

What would he even _do_ this time? Playing along didn’t work. Trying to stop things didn’t work. Sitting here panicking wouldn’t work. What’d…

“Are you okay, Mister?”

Gordon nearly wanted to cry when he peered through his fingers to find the man of the hour — _he’d seen it all he’d seen it all he knew he knew_. He could’ve run, he could’ve called him out right now, he _could’ve_ , but actually seeing Tommy in front of him, all the words were dying in his throat.

And despite it all, he looked so concerned, so _sad_ for him, that Gordon couldn’t even muster _righteous_ anger. He could barely even wriggle away when Tommy reached a hand forward to touch his shoulder. He should’ve felt furious, possibly _violated_ , disgusted beyond belief, but all he could manage was a choked sob of a noise.

He _knew_ what he’d seen, what he’d been experiencing, but in that moment, Gordon could only cringe at his thoughts from just moments ago. If he couldn’t trust Tommy, then who _could_ he trust…?

“Um.” The other scientist started, fumbling as he tended to, hands familiarly trembling with caffeine. “I’m getting some of my friends t’gether. I-i-in the break room, if you want.” He grinned, and despite the fact Gordon could _see_ something heinous crawling behind it, there was some comfort in it, too. There shouldn’t have been, but _God_ , he was just so tired, and…

“Gonna have soda, and, and Tic-Tacs. The Minion kind, ‘cause they’re the best. Not all at once though.”

Gordon swallowed, catching himself before he was pulled too deeply into that false sense of security. He was not eating a goddamn Minion Tic-Tac, for starters. This was exactly what Tommy wanted from him — compliance, somehow. What that would lead to, Gordon didn’t know, and he was scared out of his wits even imagining it. Distorting the balance of time, rewriting history, all for _him_ , all for… what?

He should’ve protested, but just as his lips parted to reply, the terrifying thought entered his head of what Tommy had the power to do to him if he did. Rewind time to when he was a baby and stomp his head in, probably. Maybe something even worse. Gordon was the object of obsession for forces far beyond his comprehension, and those forces were watching him with sad eyes, awaiting his answer.

Slowly, feeling thoroughly defeated, Gordon nodded, putting his all into forcing his exhausted, tear-streaked face into a smile. “Sure thing. I could probably use some soda right about now.”

Tommy’s tired, twitching eyes lit up with a manic glee. “Oh, that makes me feel better than two mint juleps on a hot summer evening, Mister. C’mon,” Tommy outstretched his hand, and Gordon took it, getting the feeling he was no more sane than his captor by this point. “I got it all special, just for you!”

But for all of his insanity, Tommy didn’t seem to know Gordon knew. That was his only ray of hope in this situation — he felt not unlike a caged rat, living by the whims of a scientist playing God over and over again, but he could memorize the blueprints, crack the code eventually. Plan an escape one way or another — he’d survived a Resonance Cascade, who’s to say he couldn’t survive this?

(After all, for all his power, Tommy wasn’t the player character.)

He’d play the other’s game, for now.

He had, quite literally, all the time in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun game to play for Stop Time: counting the amount of times I reference canon dialogue. It's just very fun! 
> 
> Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter, and will continue to enjoy this fic :D
> 
> Next chapter: More time loop shenanigans, sanity slippage, and G-Man makes an entrance. Fun times all around!
> 
> Comments are appreciated!


	3. A Life, Stopped In Pose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3! Wheee!
> 
> As of posting, I've just finished Chapter 4, and the Google Doc is at a whopping 54 pages! Woo! Hopefully you guys are excited, because I sure am! Again, I'm so so happy this fic is being enjoyed, it's been keeping me sane these past few quarantine weeks, haha.
> 
> I like to call this chapter "the one where I forget I'm not writing a horror AU". You'll see why.
> 
> Enjoy!

“So who’re your friends?” 

“Oh!” Tommy clasped his hands with a grin — he was all too giddy to hear Mr. Freeman say those words. It was a little uncanny to have to pretend their dear friends were all strangers, but they wouldn’t stay that way for long. “Two, two other scientists, and a security guard—” he leaned in and added, “—we’re playing hooky, just like you!” 

The other just gave a little sad laugh, wiping his face with a hand — the sharp edges of the HEV suit made Tommy fear he’d scrape himself, but he didn’t seem to share that concern. “I feel bad, I really do, but just… I’unno what came over me. Nerves, I think.” 

Nodding, Tommy understood perfectly. “It’s okay, Mister. I, I, uh, i-it… ‘s not good to work when you’re sad. ‘Specially not on a big day. Everyone’ll understand — I can tell- tell my boss you couldn’t come in, he’ll get it! He likes all of my friends.” He had to smile at that — cold as he was to others, G-Man couldn’t deny his son _anything_ , especially not a little break room party to improve a friend’s mood. 

Thinking on it, he didn’t really consider the power he held as G-Man’s son until now — both physically and within Black Mesa. Where had it been all of his life, when he was busy stressing over school and work? Why hadn’t he realized until now that he held all of Black Mesa — or all of the _world_ , really — in the palm of his hand? 

He could do so much! 

Gordon blinked, stopping in the middle of scratching his cheek. “Your boss?” He echoed, inquisitively arching an eyebrow. He already looked to be in a better state than he was when Tommy found him moments ago, his eyes a little brighter — he just needed someone to talk to. “Who’s your boss?” 

A smile spread on Tommy’s face, turning on his heel to look at Mr. Freeman. He held that smile until he could see him squirm — maybe Tommy was getting too much of a kick out of holding information over everyone’s head, but after all he’d been through today, he felt some of it was justified. 

Just as the silence grew uneasy, he turned back, carrying on with his way like no question had been asked at all. “Company secret!” He chirped, a spring in his step as they reached the breakroom. He had a very special surprise planned! 

* * *

This was shaping up to be a very confusing day for Benrey so far. Not like he was complaining — bizarre was fun, and confusing days made much better stories than mundane ones. 

Still, though, to be standing in a hallway one second, and one blink later be sat in the breakroom, was not the brand of confusing Benrey was used to. Maybe it was some weird time-space anomaly — he wouldn’t put something causing that past Black Mesa, even when he tried to stay out of the business of the experiments themselves. 

Whatever the reasoning was, there _was_ a reason. Maybe he just blacked out, or had another memory fuckup. Maybe he got teleported. Whatever. 

What he _couldn’t_ find a reason for, though, was why he was unable to move. He realized this when he found his posture was too straight for his liking, and trying to slouch brought the same results that, say, trying to wiggle his knee would. Like his body was made of stiff, hardened joints. 

He couldn’t turn his head. He could barely move his eyes, and acutely wondered if anyone in the breakroom _noticed_ the security chief just staring into dead space before remembering that was something he did pretty much every day. Out of the edges of his vision, he could spot two scientists at each side of him. 

Same as him, their backs were straight, hands neatly folded into their laps, and eyes fixed on the door. Waiting. For… an explanation? Freedom? Benrey remembered their faces from their passports — Bubby (no surname, to Benrey’s knowledge), and Dr. Harold P. Coomer. The former’s eyes were hidden behind the sheen of his glasses, and the latter’s betrayed his confusion and apprehension. 

Unlike them, though, the predicament didn’t bring Benrey any fear — it was uncomfortable at _worst_ , but moreso, he was just curious about what wacky situation he’d landed himself in next. 

Just as his eyes started to burn, the door to the break room opened. Two figures — both Benrey recognized, but not ones he anticipated to ever see together. His buddy Tommy, and… the guy in the HEV suit that had bolted away from him this morning. 

As if on cue, he could feel his face stretch into a smile against his will — maybe a bit too wide, _too_ happy, as he began to fear whatever force manipulating his mouth muscles would stop holding back and just rip the skin of his cheeks clean off. 

It only brought more questions as to what was going on, but those questions were answered quicker than he thought when Tommy gave a pleased smile everyone’s way — Benrey knew being the kid of the G-Man would give him some power greater than the average Joe, but was Tommy really the kind of person to… set all of this up himself somehow? 

“I set all of this up myself!” 

Shit, okay, apparently. Benrey was trying to perform an exercise in “giving people the benefit of the doubt” but, damn, guess not. Tommy’s proud proclamation was punctuated by a deranged little laugh, and the HEV suit guy’s eyes widened at what must’ve been a scene right out of a horror movie. They probably all looked like cultists or something — staring at him, dead still, grinning in sync. 

“I’unno why,” Tommy began as Bubby mechanically reached for a soda near the vending machine before handing it to him (not much scared Benrey, but… yeah, the idea of Tommy being able to puppet people like that would give him more than a few sleepless nights), “but I get the feeling you guys are gonna be, you’re, you’re gonna be like peas in a pod, Mister Freeman!” 

Mister Freeman — that was the guy he brought in, probably. Freeman looked scared shitless, in contrast to Tommy’s slumber-party-host-esque enthusiasm. He forced on a _terrified_ grin, looking from the plastic forms of Benrey, Bubby, and Coomer, to Tommy. He looked like a hostage victim — probably felt like one, too. 

“These… these your friends, Tommy?” 

“Yeah.” Tommy nodded with a smile, then proceeded to down the can of soda at an almost frightening velocity. He pointed a finger Benrey’s way as he wiped his chin free of any spillage. “Benrey’s been my best friend for… long as I can remember! He looks — I—I know he looks kinda grumpy, but he’s a real hoot once you get to know him!” 

“ _Cool…_!” The quivering in Freeman’s voice made it evident he did not think it was very cool. Benrey’s smile widened, all too unnatural on his usually dead face, and like a marionette on strings, his hand reached out to shake Freeman’s. The suited hand clasped Benrey’s, giving it a weak shake. “Hi, Benrey. My name’s Dr. Gordon Freeman.” 

He didn’t know if Tommy was oblivious to Gordon’s discomfort or not, nor did he know if it’d be more or less scary if he was. As Tommy introduced him to the other two scientists, Benrey could see Gordon crack, bit by bit. He was already in a _state_ this morning, if his running away from him was any indication, but dealing with a real-life dollhouse of his coworkers seemed to throw him over the edge. 

His eyes darted from wall to wall, hands twitching, looking for escape routes. If not that, then anywhere to look that wasn’t just these people staring at him. “I—” he started, gears visibly turning in his head for a way out of this, “this is all… real nice, Tommy,” 

The scientist in question’s head snapped up to meet him. His unnerving smile was gone, looking a bit closer to how Benrey knew him — still, though, his unfocused eyes betrayed how _absolutely fucked_ he was right now. “Yeah?” 

“…but, ah, I feel like I should go in for the test after all. Big day, y’know, people’re gonna…” Gordon laughed nervously, trying to sound casual, “be all on my ass if I don’t.” 

Feeling Tommy’s hold on him lessened, Benrey was able to finally breathe and drop that freaky smile, but the way the taller man was just staring blankly at Gordon made him begin to think he’d turn it on him. The stretch of silence made Gordon avert his eyes, and that seemed to be Tommy’s cue to put the bright smile back on. “Oh, no, it’s okay, sir. I’ll tell my boss. He’ll get it. Promise!” Tossing the emptied can into a trash bin, he then clasped his hands. “Oh, oh, I can wheel a TV in here and put on a movie…! I really like, um, I really like… _Taxi Driver_!” 

Benrey hadn’t seen that movie before, but by Gordon’s wheeze of amusement even in his predicament, it probably wasn’t an expected one. “I’m serious, man, I…” The moment of laughter just managed to mask some of his fear, but he was a sorry liar, eyes flitting to the nearest door. “I shouldn’t. I’m sure your boss is a great guy, but Blask Mesa doesn’t take kindly to absences, so I’ll be off to the test chamber and _you_ —” 

His pointed finger went from Dr. Coomer, to Bubby, to Tommy, and Benrey rolled his eyes at being excluded. He could be in the test chamber if he _wanted_ to be. 

Well. As soon as Tommy gave him control of his limbs back. 

“— should probably be, too, for the sake of, like. Your jobs.” 

Tommy blinked, looking almost confused for reasons Benrey couldn’t decipher, and as Gordon took it as a moment to bolt out, something twisted in the scientist’s face. He let out a wordless shout, reaching a feeble hand towards Gordon, but he was already gone, the _clunk-clunk-clunk_ of his boots echoing down a hallway. 

“Oh, no…” Tommy whispered, fist clenching (and with it, Benrey could almost feel an airway closing) as he curled in on himself. The little frown on his face, the repetition of “ _oh no, no, no…_ ” — it all made him look like a kid who’d just lost his parents in the store, but the context kept Benrey from properly poking fun. 

He still couldn’t breathe, much less speak, but as Tommy lifted a quivering hand to flex his fingers, all Benrey could think was, and _here I thought_ I _was inhuman._

* * *

Counting the hours was difficult when the clocks always read the same thing, to say nothing of time actively rewinding in front of him for the… the… 

One, two… three, four… fifth…? Fifth time. Right. Fifth. He had to remember that number — had to remember _some_ number, to keep his brain from turning into mush, to keep himself from getting lost in the _one-two-three-four-five_ resets and becoming just as blind to it all as his friends. 

His friends… they didn’t remember any of it. Not even Benrey — here he came now — and nothing made Gordon feel more alone. He’d had his ups and downs with every member of his team, but if nothing else, they were… _there_. Talking to him. Helping him be a little less alone as he wandered through the remnants of Black Mesa. 

(Making the game more interesting.) 

But now, all they saw when he looked at him was a weird guy in an HEV suit. The test subject for today. The time spent building that rapport, the friendships, hell, even the rivalries, had all been undone in an instant. 

He told himself sometimes that he hated them, when he was especially stressed by their shooting everything in sight, their careless antics, their utter madness in a world already gone mad, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. They made him laugh at the worst of times, and while he already felt himself slipping just being around them, not so above it after all, he knew it would’ve been so much worse if he was _alone_. 

And now… 

They were still _around_ , sure, but Benrey’s dead eyes as he asked him for his passport was distinctly different from the mischievous shine to them when he was dicking around on their adventure. To say nothing of his dead eyes from the _last_ reset — it sent a shiver up Gordon’s spine just to think about. Fuck. 

He wasn’t even paying attention to whatever came out of his mouth in response to Benrey. Probably an excuse just as sorry as his last one, as he tumbled off in the opposite direction. He didn’t know what he wanted to do here, but not that. 

At this point, he wasn’t even thinking about a way to… undo his sins, or do it right, or whatever happened in those time loop stories in movies. He just needed to fucking _process_ it all, and he was feeling a debilitating sense of deja vu with those thoughts. Maybe everyone else weren’t the only ones living the same thoughts with every reset. 

Maybe he wasn’t as in power as he thought. Maybe this wasn’t the fifth reset, but the fiftieth. Maybe he was playing right into Tommy’s hands. Maybe — 

Suddenly feeling sick to his stomach, he shouldered into the locker room, intending to make it to the bathroom, but his legs seemed to fail him and he only stumbled to the floor, just catching himself on his hands. His vision was spotting, he was fucking losing it — 

(This session had been going for hours longer than it should’ve, he needed to sleep, he needed to get dinner, but he just couldn’t put it down.) 

— and was just about to let himself curl up into that familiar fetal position and either cry or vomit his soul out when he heard a familiar voice call out to him. 

“Dr. Freeman?” 

Dr. Coomer tipped his head at the sight of Gordon’s state, his voice sounding more genuinely lost than its usual dull cheeriness — and thinking on it, Gordon couldn’t blame him. He looked like a wreck, pressing a hand to his aching eyes, not able to do much for his stomach. 

He felt nauseous, feeling something start to come up his throat. He hadn’t eaten in… days, technically. Wasn’t it fucked up how his body felt like it stayed the same? He didn’t know if it really did — he had both arms now, after all, and none of the miscellaneous scrapes and bullet wounds littering his body, but he sure _felt_ like he was still in the middle of the apocalypse, at least in terms of health. 

It was either another panic attack or the side effects of time travel, and neither were particularly _great._

“Are you alright, Dr. Freeman?” Coomer asked again, and this was Gordon’s cue to just brush it off with another bit of nonsense and excuse himself again, just like he had with Benrey, but the more irrational part of him (read: the part currently in control, if his panic attack theory was correct) couldn’t do it again. He couldn’t keep doing this — whatever _this_ was, because he’d go insane if he had one more experience to repeat. 

He shut his eyes tight, shaking his head. “…mm-mmh.” It wasn’t like… it’d _matter_ if he talked about it, right? Nobody _else_ remembered anything about the resets. And maybe Dr. Coomer was different, because he was buggy self-aware Dr. Coomer, but… God, Gordon was just so _exhausted_. “I… ‘s just…” 

As he stammered for his words, he opened his eyes and glanced up to find Coomer listening intently. It’d be a lot of inane bullshit, but if anyone here _knew_ inane bullshit, it’d be him. “This sounds like some… crackpot bullshit. But I just, I… _mrngh_.” 

In his defense, how would _you_ even begin to explain this? 

Coomer knelt beside him, and here he realized he was just on his hands and knees there on the floor like a weird ape. Shifting so he was sitting up, Gordon let out a sigh. “I… sorry, it’s… it’s hard to explain. I don’t wanna hold you up, man.” 

“Quite alright, Dr. Freeman. Perhaps you should take a mental health day!” 

With a sad wheeze, Gordon shook his head. “Would if I could. Really.” Was anything really keeping him from just… turning and leaving the facility? …the tram, right. Damn. “It’s happened… it’s happened…” 

Taking a moment to mentally count, there was another ache in his stomach. Uuugh. 

“…four times, now. It’s Tommy, he’s. He’s rewinding time, and, and I’ve been through this morning—” was he supposed to count the first time? “—four, technically five times. It’s driving me fucking insane, I don’t know what he wants, I don’t know how to get _out_ of it, I, I just… had to tell _somebody_.” 

Coomer’s expression was unreadable — confusion, sympathy, maybe a little bit of fear. Gordon couldn’t blame him. 

“Every time I… run away from him, or go into the test chamber, it happens again, and, and I’d just play along, but, but I saw last time what he’s capable of, he was using you like some fucked up _meat puppet_ ,” Despite the sobriety, he had to laugh a bit at the phrasing. Laughing at the absurdity of it all had always been his best coping mechanism. “And I’m afraid if I stick around he’s _going_ to kill me.” 

Part of him hoped against hope that Dr. Coomer would have some words of wisdom — maybe time travel tips were programmed in next to the hunger and thirst mechanics — but his mentor only looked lost as ever. Of course this was the _one_ situation where he’d act like a… semi-reasonable human being. 

“If it’s Tommy you’re afraid of, you could speak to HR!” Coomer offered brightly, likely grasping onto the one part of Gordon’s rant that wouldn’t either fry his brain or make him want to call the cops. “But I’ll be honest, Gordon,” he added, more seriously, placing a supportive hand on Gordon’s shoulder in an attempt to extend an olive branch in a situation far beyond his comprehension. “You don’t seem very fit to work today. Did you get enough rest last night?” 

He only feebly shook his head. “I haven’t slept in… God, it must be a day now, right?” He knew Dr. Coomer couldn’t answer, but getting to formulate this out loud instead of just suffering in silence helped. “I’m so tired. It’s just — just this, every hour, forever, that’s all it’s gonna be, until one time I’ll just walk in here and drop _dead_ ,” he smacked a hand against his palm for emphasis, “if Tommy doesn’t… kill me, or make me his weird puppet slave first. I _saw_ what he did last time, I can’t _un_ see it, he…” 

The dead eyes, mechanical movements, forced smiles, trapped in an eternal party. The worst part was that Gordon knew damn well if he had the power he’d do the same to him. Force a grin on his face and lock him in that break room, their special pocket dimension for the rest of time, mindless to his friends wasting away, because for all Tommy knew (or cared), they were just as immortal as his dog. 

He killed for Gordon, fucked with the course of history for Gordon, mind controlled people for Gordon. It made him regret ever walking up to Tommy in the hallway those eons ago — what had he _unleashed_ on everyone? 

“I don’t know what happened, if it was the power, or the soda, or…” Weak gestures out were all he could manage. “I don’t know. I don’t know, but he’s lost it, and I — I’m _just_ as confused as you.” Slightly shaking his head, his hands dropped into his lap. He was all out of tears, but found himself sniffling nonetheless, unable to meet Coomer’s eyes, only fidgeting with the plating on his hands. 

To his surprise, the other moved to sit down beside him. He felt an arm around him, and Gordon was almost embarrassed at how hard he leaned into it. It wouldn’t last — he knew it wouldn’t, but it was _something_ , a moment where he didn’t have to feign sanity for everyone’s sake. Dr. Coomer might have known it too, by Gordon’s explanation. Usually he’d just brush him off and try to stick to schedule, but… 

“Would you like to stay here for a moment, Dr. Freeman?” 

Gordon hoped his silence was an adequate answer. 

And there he stayed, by Dr. Coomer’s side for what felt like hours. Occasionally, he’d start rambling again, as there was so much he’d barely even scratched the surface of — the Resonance Cascade, Bubby’s betrayal, Tommy’s, the military, the resets… — until he felt his soul was laid bare. 

It didn’t last, just as he expected. That familiar dreadful flash of yellow hit when he stepped into the room the HEV suits were kept in, and turning around, he saw it all undone. 

But it felt… a little less hopeless, even when the next time around Coomer’s eyes would be as vacant as ever, with no memory of what he’d done for his friend. He could at least try and make the best of it all, right? It wasn’t like he was going anywhere. 

Hitting the ground running, alert, rather than just being miserably resigned to his fate was a welcome change. Benrey would be rounding the corner any second, and Gordon awaited it with not dread, but anticipation. This was _his_ world, they were all just living in it. He was starting to see the appeal of being an absolute nuisance. 

(What was the point in keeping the act up if it’d all reset anyway?) 

It was the dumbest thing to bring him so much joy when he shouted back to Benrey “DO _YOU_ HAVE YOUR PASSPORT? _IDIOT_?”, but it was something he’d been wanting to do for a while. If Gordon was gonna be trapped here, he may as well have fun with it. 

He knew, acutely, this meant that his hold on reality was slipping, but in the moment, squeezing what little joy he could out of predicting his co-worker’s motions and stepping back and treating it all like a silly game was all he could do to keep from wanting to off himself and end the cycle there. He had a son to get home to when this all went back to normal, so why not get some funny stories to tell him? 

Stopping Coomer in place with objects just big enough to block his path, repeating Benrey’s lines before he could even say them, trapping Bubby in that computer corner… They were all well and fun, a better way to spend the next _one-two-three-four-five-six-seven_ resets than just moping around crying, but even when the pranks grew tired, one thing about those runs never would. 

The look on Tommy’s face when he found what became of his experiment. 

But even _that_ grew painful to think about when the high ebbed. No matter what he did, it would all come back to that hallway, his passport, the big testing day. No amount of hacks or pranks could ease that helplessness, the loneliness of being the only sane one in a world gone mad. Scratch that — the only self-aware madman in a world full of them. He didn’t know what he was anymore, but _sane_ wasn’t an apt descriptor. 

He stopped counting the resets after the fifteenth. The world was a blur of gold and not much else. He still didn’t know what Tommy wanted, but if it was to _break_ him, he’d done a damn good job at it. 

(One reset, he hacked in lategame weapons, just for fun, but he shut off the game without saving when he gunned down Dr. Coomer, feeling viscerally sick. Whatever the answer to his predicament was, _that_ couldn’t have been it.) 

Gordon’s head pounded. He had to stop, slump against a wall, and take a moment to ground himself — remind himself this was all real. He couldn’t lose sight of what once happened here — what he was supposed to be _fighting_ for. He wasn’t here to have fun, or play God. That made him… just like Tommy. Just like the lunatic puppetmaster he’d vowed to stop. He couldn’t throw away his conscience like that. 

(He’d been staring at this goddamn game for hours.) 

“Hello, sir.” 

And there was the scientist himself. There were no remnants of the Tommy he’d traversed the Resonance Cascade with — this was a whole other beast, and one Gordon couldn’t begin to understand even after _five-twelve-fifteen_ time loops. A small smile crossed his face, workplace polite even when this conversation was far beyond that, and they both seemed to know it. He extended a hand Gordon’s way — perfectly practiced by now. 

“My name’s—” 

“ _TOMMY!_ ” Gordon spat out, hearing those words for the umpteenth time being just enough to throw him over the edge. “I know! I know, I’ve done this five hundred _fucking_ times!” Like a coil inside him finally snapping, the words just _came_ out, hard and sharp, and Gordon regretted them instantly. Not the usual regret that came with an unusually rude outburst, but more _fear_. Keeping it all to himself was the only power he had in this situation, but now Tommy knew, and he’d do something even _worse_ to him _somehow, and—_

“I… I’unno what you’re talking about.” Tommy lied, and there, the fear was replaced with _fury_. He wrung his hands, innocently looking off to the side. “Did you hit your head on the way here?” 

“I know what’s going on, Tommy!” Gordon blurted, his impulsiveness seemingly willing to dig his grave. “You don’t have to treat me like some — some five year old!” 

Tommy’s eyes widened, averting his gaze even more as he took a single step back. “I—I… think I’ve got somewhere t’ be, M— sir.” He turned to go, only to be caught by the sleeve, Gordon’s grip a vice in all his pent up stress. “Excuse me—” Tommy attempted to wriggle away, partway through trying to pull off his lab coat and free himself when Gordon snapped back. 

“No, no, no!” He relished the little “ow” from Tommy as he yanked him back into place more than he should’ve. He knew this sheer anger was unlike him — Gordon got stressed, impulsive, emotional, but never as _hateful_ as he felt now — and took a second to swallow and steady his voice. “You’re going to listen to me,” he began, trying to remain calm through the stress and fury snowballing and making him want to snap Tommy’s arm like a twig, “and you’re going to listen _good._ ” 

Tommy’s lips were parted, eyes still confused and lost, having all of his power kicked out from beneath him in an instant. 

“You’re messing with time.” Gordon began, having to fight desperately to keep his voice and grip reasonable. “I know it’s you. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen everything.” He shut his eyes for a moment, shoulders involuntarily slumping like he’d just blacked out for a moment. It wouldn’t surprise him — he’d gone this long without sleep, somehow. “I got my arm cut off, and time rewound, and then the military got us, and time rewound again.” 

The deliberation in his voice wasn’t intentional patronization, but he recalled distantly that being one of Tommy’s pet peeves. He couldn’t bring himself to care. Really, it added an almost satisfactory layer to it all. Tommy had said nothing, just staring blankly in the wake of Gordon’s words, which was his cue to drop the forced calmness. “It’s been rewinding ever since and it’s _all_ come back to you!” He rattled the other, knocking him off balance for a moment. 

“ _Why?!_ ” 

Silence was a familiar feeling when talking to Tommy. He didn’t speak much, off in his own head more often than not, and usually, it wasn’t a real issue. Now, though, when Gordon wanted nothing more than answers from his mouth and his mouth alone, each second he spent simply looking ahead was torture. 

“Why?…” He echoed, seeming to refocus on the world around him with a blink. His eyelid twitched, his forehead sheening with sweat. Gordon felt the urge to ask again, but knew that these uncomfortable pauses were kind of Tommy’s thing. 

He smiled. A toothy grin, dissonantly cheerful and all too wrong on his wrinkled, exhausted face, to say nothing of the chill it gave Gordon when coupled with his twitchy caffeinated gaze. “It’s ‘cause — it’s ‘cause I’m a good scientist, Mr. Freeman…” He shook his head, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, taking Gordon’s moment of confusion as a chance to free his arm and straighten his lab coat. “Good scientists gotta... we gotta try the same things over ‘n’ over!” He spoke brightly, smoothing out his coat’s creases. 

“‘Cause then maybe we’ll find a way to stop the creatures, and the soldiers, and, and Benrey an’ Bubby being bad, and everything else that’s happened.” As he talked, his smile faltered, light expression giving way to a more somber one. The creatures and soldiers felt like so long ago, but thinking on it… that was the point, wasn’t it? Tommy’s mouth downturned into a frown, dark eyes sorrowful even in their crazed state, pupils trembling. “I’ve seen what comes next, Mr. Freeman. It’s horrible.” 

Hands clasped, his thumb lightly stroked his knuckles, still appearing deep in thought. “I know you don’t get it now, but, um…” The smile returned like it had never left at all, the same smile that would’ve brought Gordon comfort to see long ago. Now, though, all it brought was unease. “Maybe one day, when we’re all happy with Sunkist, and my boss, and… and all our other friends, you will!” 

“No! No, I won’t!” Gordon barked back. Somehow, Tommy thinking he was doing good here was worse than the alternative — all of this, for… what, science? It was all bullshit to him. Intentions didn’t matter, not when it brought all of this _misery_. “You think I care what _you_ think?!” 

It was pointless — whatever happened to Tommy, he was far too set in his ways, far too afraid of the Resonance Cascade to risk possibly making things right again. “I don’t even know why I’m _bothering_ —” Gordon rolled his eyes and huffed, trying to regain his composure, because maybe if he was rational he could talk him down, right? If he said the right thing — 

“— I could delete this game _right now_!” 

… 

That wasn’t the right thing. 

Where did that come from? 

He didn’t know why he said that, or thought to phrase it that way, but it stilled Tommy in his tracks. He was silent for a moment, again, taking a moment to process the words coming out of Gordon’s mouth just as much as he was. Wordless stammers came out, but eventually, Tommy did what he did to every misstep in his perfectly-to-code plans. 

He raised his hand, flexed his fingers, and then had no more mysteries to worry about. 

* * *

G-Man knew his son was toying with the balance of history, and at first, was just thankful he’d learned to _use_ his powers for anything. Maybe it wasn’t a great parenting decision to just let him at it, but then again, what eldritch entity beyond human comprehension _didn’t_ have an emo phase where they messed with time to get what they wanted? It would blow over soon, that he knew. The actions weren’t the problem. 

But watching through the walls of Black Mesa, G-Man knew his son was slipping away. Looking at him, this wasn’t the silly, bright-minded man he knew. This was a completely different person from the Tommy Coolatta who never hurt a fly, who bought different leashes for Sunkist on every walk, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of the _Minions_ movies of all things. 

This wasn’t the son he raised, and there was a rare sense of shame with how long this had gone on without confrontation. Traversing the suspended world with ease, it wasn’t long until he found Tommy, bathed in a golden light, standing over one Gordon Freeman. He heard his father approaching, and snapped around on his heel to face him. 

Gordon was still frozen in time, looking to them but not truly seeing. The messiah meant to be everyone’s hero, charging through Black Mesa before reaching the ultimate birthday bash at the end of the world, was reduced to a frenzied, wide-eyed mess at the sight of Tommy’s abilities. 

And Tommy himself… _something_ had definitely happened to him while G-Man was stalking the edges of time and space. His eyes, usually dark and gentle, now had a dissonant gold glow to them in the wake of his power’s usage, but even that didn’t fully mask how sunken they had become. Soda was spilled over his front, his foot frantically tapped, and his teeth ground in stress at the sight of G-Man. 

“D—Dad—” He blinked rapidly, rubbing a hand against his eyes. He looked guilty, though his father hadn’t even given him anything to be guilty over. “Wh—what’re… wh-what’re you doing here?” 

Staring ahead coolly, G-Man allowed himself a beat of silence before answering. “What is it you… think you are doing, Tommy?” He sighed out, unperturbed by Tommy’s change in expression, his eyes flying open as he anxiously adjusted his coat. 

“Me? Me, I, I…” He fumbled, running a hand through his hair, pulling it back with a sheen of grease. It hadn’t been long, and yet, his son looked almost like he’d aged a decade. “I, I couldn’t… I wanted t’… wanted t’ keep Mr. Freeman safe. But he keeps — he keeps going, I… I can’t see him get hurt again, Dad, he’s my friend, Mr, — Mr. Freeman, I…” His voice softened into a whimper, fists balling as his lip continued to quiver. His breathing was harsh and fast, even when he hadn’t done anything the least bit exerting, and it stopped as his gaze met his father’s. 

There was a twinkle in his bloodshot eyes now, and G-Man couldn’t even raise a hand to silence him before he started rambling. “You, you can help me stop him, right, r-r-right, Dad? I was gonna, I was gonna get a party t’gether in the break room a while ago, with him and all my other friends, like, like our own li’l pocket dimension, but I—… I’unno how to do that real well yet, could—” 

“ _Tommy._ ” G-Man’s glare was enough to halt any mortal, and thankfully Tommy wasn’t so far gone that he’d lost the instinct to shut up when he saw it. A light smile appeared on his face, his gaze softening as he clasped his hands. “You… misunderstand, my boy…” He chuckled, “…Dr. Freeman was exactly where he belonged before. He is safe as can be. Do you think I would allow any harm to befall your… _dear friend?_ ” 

It was true — everything in the first run played perfectly into G-Man’s hands. Even the worst of it, Gordon would survive, as would all of his friends — they had a party to attend in the end, after all. He thought Tommy would’ve had the same idea, knowing his father’s hold — both economically and metaphysically — on Black Mesa and its workers, but… apparently not, and now, he was derailing Dr. Freeman’s meticulously planned journey with his childish games. 

“Any —” Tommy echoed, sounding incredulous, his eyebrows furrowing. Then, his face twisted into an expression even his own father rarely, if ever, saw. His teeth bared, nostrils flaring, and his voice was a shrill shout when he continued. “ _Any harm_ — he, he lost his arm! Did you — did you even see him back there?! He coulda died! That water, it, it wasn’t clean, none of it was up to code, he couldn’t even shoot a gun, he would’ve died in that desert if _I_ didn’t save him!” 

“I am… not sure what else you would have anticipated, given the circumstances…” G-Man hummed. “Pain is how one grows. Dr. Freeman would have endured — received a new arm for his troubles, even. And you would have been closer with him for it.” 

“What, what, after — after he lost a _leg_ , too?” Tommy snapped. “He was miserable! Everyone, all of, all of our friends jus’... they just left him! And Benrey and Bubby, they, they…” his face contorted into one of pure hatred at the thought, and it seemed to pain him to even verbalize, feeling Dr. Freeman’s pain perhaps more than the man himself. 

With another whine, and a stressed hand running through his messy hair, Tommy concluded, “…it’s better here! Not just for — not just to Mr. Freeman, for them, too, he just—” casting a glance over his shoulder to the man he’d been toying with, he seemed to relax, voice lowering into a whisper. “…he’ll get it. Not now, but, sometime! I’ll get it right.” 

G-Man exhaled. “Stop this, Tommy. You are… treating the course of history like a mere game.” He cared for his son’s plight, truly, even if he didn’t fully understand why these mortals — and Benrey — meant so much to him, but there was only so much stalling he could handle. Gaze hardened, G-Man shook his head, voice dropping with disappointment when he said, “that is… no way to live, my boy.” 

“And just letting my friends get hurt _is?_ ” G-Man couldn’t even remember a time his progeny talked back to him, and he didn’t let the surprise at it show, but it still gave him a sense of… dread, almost. “I couldn’t do anything for him! I wouldn’t have done all of this if, if I didn’t think it was serious! He was gonna die! They all were, that, that second time!” His voice cracked, eyes glistening with tears. “Where were you _then?!_ ” 

“That was your doing.” G-Man stated, the bluntness making Tommy halt. “You killed the experiment, leaving your team with… less legs to stand on, if you will. Now, do you see, why Dr. Freeman was sacrificed?” He gestured to the man in question. “If Dr. Coomer, for instance, was lost, you would have been without his, ah…” what was the word? “sick gains.” That sounded about right. “And I could not bear losing you.” He pocketed his hands. “In that moment, Dr. Freeman was… expendable, the sad truth is. His suffering… it was the only thing keeping that second scenario you… _unfortunately_ found yourself in from happening.” 

“I—it didn’t have to happen at all! None of this had to happen at _all!_ ” Tommy spat. “We coulda just stayed in the break room forever! And, and hurt — _no one!_ ” 

G-Man’s teeth ground in silent frustration, but taking a deep breath, he kept his voice calm. “Fighting fate is an… uphill battle, my boy—” 

“—AND I’LL WIN IT!” The younger man screeched, seeming not to even realize it, and as he did, a manic grin stretched his face. Something changed in his eyes then — the mortal eyes G-Man had raised to holiness himself shifted, from brightly spanning galaxies to dark black holes. It wasn’t quite _fear_ , but G-Man felt the sudden chill of meeting his hubris — giving a child the powers of a God. He was a fool to think it would be as easy as raising him to be humble — no mere human with time and space in his hands could stay sane at the revelation. “You think I _can’t?!_ ” 

G-Man’s eyes narrowed at the insubordination, posture straightening as he unfurled to his full height. Not quite Tommy’s, but enough to strike fear into the heart of any mortal thinking to challenge a deity. Piercing eyes, stark against sharp shadows and the harsh gold lighting of a world in suspension — the kind of expression that wouldn’t leave a man until his deathbed. 

And Tommy didn’t falter, his glare hard and defiant. 

Flexing his pocketed fist, G-Man found there was only one answer to this predicament. 

* * *

With a familiar, dizzying flash, the ground beneath Tommy’s feet changed, as did the scent of the air around him. Opening his eyes, he was no longer in one of Black Mesa’s many winding hallways, but behind the safety glass of an all too familiar test chamber, the grandiose spectrometer in the center awaiting its victim. 

His heart dropped into his stomach. 

He didn’t know where Mr. Freeman was, but he couldn’t let it be here, not ever, not _ever ever_ , and flexed his fingers so hard he could feel one of them pop. 

Nothing. 

He tried again, to no result — time spun as usual, the world was still dull, and there was no adrenaline pumping through his veins — only an uncanny chill. Eyes darting around the control room, there were the usual suspects — Bubby and Dr. Coomer standing by his side, seeming unperturbed by his sudden paranoia, watching the incoming subject like it wasn’t their lives on the line. 

In stepped Gordon, finally, with Benrey trailing behind him. _Flex, flex, flex, flex — nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing._ Just about gasping for air, he slammed on the intercom button, head whipping around to try to find any sign of G-Man. His hyperventilating echoed in his skull, crackling with the shitty mic quality as his gaze swept the room. Finally, he found his father, those glowing eyes boring into his soul, seeming intent to watch everything fall apart. 

“Mr. Freeman!” He tore his eyes away to call out to the physicist, not even sure what he’d _do_ to fix this, but it had to be _something_. He’d lose his job if it meant stopping the Resonance Cascade, he’d lose his _life_ if it meant stopping the Resonance Cascade — why didn’t his Dad understand?! “Mr. Freeman!” He called again, voice cracking as tears threatened to spill, ignorant to Bubby trying to push him away from the intercom. 

Through his tears, he could see a thin scar circling Bubby’s forearm as his sleeve brushed aside, right where his arm was lost those eons ago. He couldn’t stand to think about the implications of this, laser focusing on Gordon and Benrey. 

The other’s gaze finally met his, expression unreadable between the distance and the light casting a glare on his glasses, but his mouth was turned into a frown. His stare held on Tommy for a second, whose heart hammered in his chest. He was just about to force an order out — a demand to _turn back, the test was too dangerous,_ and he’d deal with the consequences from his coworkers of that later — but his voice crumbled in his throat when he saw Gordon raise a hand. 

He was… 

He was flipping him off. 

Tommy didn’t have time to verbally react before Bubby roughly elbowed him in the ribs to take the intercom for himself. “Stop dicking around, Gordon.” He stated gruffly, “Do you see the next step?” 

Bumping into his colleagues, Tommy hugged himself tightly, unable to take his eyes off of the incoming trainwreck that was the fateful test. Benrey was causing as many issues as he normally did, Bubby rushing Gordon with a hiss — even now, they were on a short schedule — Coomer trying to grab for the mic to take a more “good cop” approach, but despite it all… 

Gordon was smiling, like his life had been leading up to this very moment. 

He was the one that should have been afraid here, falling apart even, but he greeted it all like a homecoming. Tommy would’ve thought the shattering glass and ear-splitting alarms were like music to his ears, the flash of the green shockwave a strobe light. 

Did he _want_ to die? 

The room blew apart in a rough explosion, the blast throwing the control room’s inhabitants against the wall like ragdolls, glass slicing their exposed skin. Ears ringing, Tommy could barely see what was going on around him as the bright flares dimmed. He had no time to begin to take it all in — he had to look for Mr. Freeman, for his friends…! 

Looking around, it took a moment for him to realize what he was looking at — what became of the test chamber. The machinery fizzled and sparked, and Tommy feared it would explode if he didn’t get Gordon out of there soon. He was short on time, everything hurt too much to try climb down, his vision was blurring in and out — he didn’t even think before vaulting the catwalk’s railing, barely realizing what he’d done until the air was whistling in his ears as he fell. 

Tommy nearly cracked his skull open against the hard floor, painfully landing on his shoulder. His arm went numb with pain, his stomach turning at just imagining the bruise the fall had given it. His heart pounded, everything aching, burning, unable to even think beneath the sirens. He forced himself to his feet, arm dragging limply at his side. 

Finally, he saw him. Mr. Freeman was out cold on the ground, crumpled to the floor. The HEV suit was miraculously unscratched, and Gordon looked so small and frail compared to its bulk. Tommy could barely tell through his tears if its owner was still breathing. All of his emotions were spiked to 100 — concern for his friend, anger at his father for potentially getting countless people killed _again_ , fear for his own life as well as everyone else’s — but as he stirred, Gordon didn’t look the least bit concerned. 

Tommy’s hand only ached at the strain of trying to flex his fingers, and so he could simply watch in horror as Gordon ignored his pleas and walked on without so much as a limp. 

It was his world now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final run has begun... 
> 
> Thank you for reading! This one was very fun to write — between the time loop shenanigans, the Coomer comfort scene, the creepiness, G-Man, the test going haywire... HOO!!! I had more time loop ideas I couldn't quite squeeze in, but I'm happy with what came out.
> 
> Fun fact! Originally, in this fic, the Player was going to have a bigger role. My very first idea was that, at a point, they get bored with the time loops and just abandon the game, leaving Gordon his usually programmed self — a defenseless, confused theoretical physicist. But, fun as that was, it caused a number of plot holes if I thought about it too hard, so I ditched that XD
> 
> Another idea I had, before including G-Man, was that the Player would use speedrun strats to clip into the test chamber and break the time loop. Which is silly, but hey, so is HLVRAI. 
> 
> ANOTHER thing. Tommy liking Taxi Driver is because I was looking up soap operas (his favorite TV show he mentions in Act 4 is a fictional soap opera) and, according to IMDb, Taxi Driver is considered a soap opera??? I found that way too funny to not include. 
> 
> Anyway, enough behind-the scenes - next chapter: Half-Life VR HARD MODE, Beyblades, and Science Team bonding (-Tommy)! It's a very fun one.
> 
> (Also I am so tired so I'm going to hit the post button and then fall into a coma. Sorry if I missed any dialogue in the work skin!)
> 
> Comments are appreciated!


	4. In A World That Never Goes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO EVERYONE I AM WRITING THIS CHAPTER NOTE WHILST STILL RIDING THE HIGH THAT CAME WITH FINISHING THIS FIC. That's right! As of posting this, all of Stop Time has been written! A whopping _40k_ words in total, and though I can't spoil, I am very, very excited to get to the end with you all! Thank you so much for your support!
> 
> Onto this chapter! The final run has begun, and it'll be a fun one >:]
> 
> Enjoy!

Bubby definitely had a fucking concussion now. _Ow,_ shrapnel. The pain was all he could really register at first — the aching in his head, the stings from the debris and glass embedded in him from the explosions, the heat of the shock wave that hadn’t quite died down — but he found he couldn’t linger on that for too long. No, there were far more pressing matters. The lights that weren’t taken out by the explosion flickered ominously above his head, and the blood of scientists and monsters alike coated the damaged walls. 

Yeah, that was another thing. Monsters. Not the kind Black Mesa grew in tubes alongside him, but completely different beasts. That wasn’t a good sign. It was a horrible one, really! First he lost his home in this horrifically bungled experiment, and now aliens from fuck-knows-where were infesting it. Pulling a pistol from the holster of a dead security guard, he wobbily got to picking his way through Black Mesa’s corridors. 

His hold on his weapon tightened when he passed a hallway leading into the test chamber — he didn’t _hear_ anything threatening, but he caught sight of Gordon Freeman and had to physically restrain himself from blowing his brains out then and there. “Hey!” He barked, pointing his gun square at Gordon’s head from across the room. “Are you that _motherfucker_ ,” his voice was slurred from blood loss, but he hoped his rage came through, “that _fucked up_ this whole experiment?!” 

That sick fuck had just been standing there _smiling_ as the world ripped apart, but now, as his hands raised in surrender when Bubby marched over, he was visibly taking it back. His eyes were wide, and he spent a second wordlessly stammering before responding, “listen, man, I, I don’t know what came over me but it didn’t have anything to do with what went wrong. I swear.” 

At Bubby’s skeptical expression, Gordon just huffed in annoyance — somehow mad Bubby wasn’t bending down to kiss his toes. “You saw what went down over there — Benrey crawling around by the sample, we were _so_ behind schedule, probably some — fucked up radiation thing? I don’t know, but it was _not_ me, I swear, I promise you.” 

“A likely story.” Bubby hissed, lowering his gun ever so slightly. “If you didn’t know the way around here, I’d kill you now, you know.” There was a beat of silence. His vengeance craving hadn’t been sated. “Still might, actually!” 

“I don’t doubt that.” Gordon sighed. Being Bubby’s tour guide was the _least_ he could do as payment for… well, even if he didn’t _cause_ it, the uncanny sight of grinning in the face of everything Bubby ever knew being killed in one fell swoop, y’know. 

Still, though, his head was swimming with questions. It was hard to believe this guy was innocent — weird behavior around the accident aside, he was the one who _brought_ that… Benrey, did he call him? …into the test chamber to begin with. He was about to open his mouth and ask, to fill the silence as they wandered, but was cut off by Gordon’s colorful swearing in surprise as an alien rounded the corner, ripping Bubby’s gun from his grasp to shoot it. 

“Jesus fucking Christ—!” Bubby snapped beneath the gunshots, grabbing the weapon back the second they died down. “Are you braindead?!” 

“What do you expect me to _do_ , man?!” Gordon seethed, and here Bubby learned that they’d probably kill each other long before the aliens or radiation did. 

“Not just grab a _gun_ out of my hand, you could’ve blown off your goddamn arm!” Bubby said, adjusting his glasses to do something with his hand that wasn’t pulling the trigger and making that hypothetical a reality. “I was going to _ask,_ ” he began, trying to redirect his anger, “why Benrey was even _with_ you.” 

“Couldn’t get him to leave me alone, even when it was gonna get him, like, irradiated.” Gordon stepped ahead to peer around the corner, looking both ways, “guy’s insane,” and then his shoulders sagged. “Oh, speak of the devil.” 

A droning voice could be heard from a couple feet away, “yooo, that’s my best friennnd.” 

“It is _absolutely_ not.” Gordon gave a pointed glare in Benrey’s direction as he wandered towards the duo. Bubby had seen him from a distance during the test, but didn’t see until now how _absolutely dead_ the guy looked. His age was… indecipherable, face bony and wrinkled with dark circles sagging his eyes despite his more youthful mannerisms, and Bubby quickly determined that ambiguity was just… his _thing_. 

“Hey, watch out, man.” It took a second for Bubby to realize he was being addressed. Benrey tilted his head in Gordon’s direction. “This guy’s a, he’s… crazy person. Doesn’t have his passport. Bet he doesn’t even work here.” Without any warning, he just _grabbed_ Gordon’s face, and Bubby was thankful that he’d snatched the gun back, otherwise Benrey would be a headless smear against the wall right about now. “You can pretend t’ be anyone with a helmet.” 

“I’m not even wearing a — okay, first of all,” Gordon started, pushing Benrey’s hands away. “You were just calling me your friend a second ago, which… I’m not that either. Second of all, you probably don’t _care_ , but that’s a damn heavy accusation when people are _dying_.” He gestured to the body of a scientist laying facedown on the floor, his blood pooling around him. “It wasn’t funny before, but it _sure_ isn’t when there’s, fuckin’, _creatures_ running around.” 

Benrey just held disinterested eye contact, making a ‘blah-blah-blah’ gesture with his hand. Bubby rolled his eyes, walking on ahead — it was shaping up to be a long day already, to say nothing of having to deal with _this_ at every turn. Trying to tune out the bickering, he shot at another alien — what was that, a fucking _crab?_ — and was surveying the hallway for another when he heard footsteps. 

Not his, and not his companions’. 

He readied his weapon and charged, Gordon calling out after him as he rounded a corner into a dilapidated breakroom to find, standing amidst the carnage, Tommy Coolatta. Bubby was grateful he made it out of the explosion alive, but it looked like it had… definitely knocked some screws loose, to say nothing of the screws already loose by his behavior throughout. There was a fucking menacing aura about him right now — Bubby wasn’t afraid of anything, but even he felt a little offput by the sight of his coworker, bruised and battered from the Resonance Cascade, trembling, wild-eyed, and wary, with a pistol in one hand and an emptied soda can in the other. 

Bubby felt like he was eye to eye with a wild dog. He didn’t know Tommy particularly well, or even like him for that matter, but _this…_ didn’t feel like the same manchild prodigy he’d heard all these success stories about. 

He had no room to question it, though, as much like a wild dog, Tommy darted off at the sight of him. 

“What was that?” Gordon asked, tilting his head up to look over Bubby’s shoulder. Nothing was there — just a run-down break room littered with corpses and a broken soda machine. “‘nother scientist?” 

There was a pang of unease in Bubby’s stomach — he was gone, but the look in Tommy’s eyes couldn’t be shaken. “…yup.” It _wasn’t_ a lie, technically. “He bolted, though.” He blinked, exhaling, putting on his usual cocky grin. “No matter — the crabs’ll get to him if we can’t!” 

Despite Gordon’s tendency to panic, he didn’t press the matter. He pushed himself to the front of the group, something Bubby was mildly irritated by, but knew he’d pretty much asked for. Benrey had latched onto them like a leech, and didn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon. Thankfully, he was… _mostly_ quiet, unless an opportunity to bait Gordon into a nonsense argument arose. 

Which… happened more than it should’ve. The guy was _just_ too easy to rile up, and Bubby felt a light sense of deja vu. He couldn’t place why, but it only aggravated him more. Gordon had no sense of picking his battles, it seemed, as all of Benrey’s dull sarcasm flew completely over his head as they chatted. (“Jesus Christ, dude, you can’t just shoot random people—!! You’re a security guard for a living, how do you not know that?!” “‘s what they taught me in training.” “ _No it’s not?!_ ”) 

Bubby was about half a second from setting them both on fire to shut them the fuck up — when, thank God and all that was holy, they bumped into Dr. Coomer back in the test chamber. Not Bubby’s _favorite_ person around, but someone with a halfway decent head on their shoulders who wasn’t Gordon or Benrey. The bar was in the Earth’s core, but it worked. 

Gordon was in the middle of lecturing the old scientist about radiation by the time they got moving again, but it was a welcome change to the screaming at Benrey every turn. Stepping out into the hallway, Gordon stopped at the end and turned to face the group. 

“Alright, so this is our team?” He asked, watching Benrey huddle up with the other two scientists. Bubby lightly smacked the guard’s elbow off his shoulder. “I know it’s rough out here, but we need to be _ride-or-die_. No funny business, no… splitting up, _anything_.” He gestured frantically as he spoke, and for once, Bubby felt he was talking sense — of course someone who wore his emotions on his sleeve would want others to do the same. “You got that?” 

“Anything you say, Dr. Freeman!” Coomer chirped, in contrast to Benrey’s eye roll. Bubby just crossed his arms, wondering where this was going. Gordon hesitated, chewing his inner cheek as he screwed up his face in thought. He had something to confess, Bubby realized, pondering exactly _what_ as he continued. 

“This is gonna sound like… the craziest shit ever. But if we’re gonna work together, I want us to all be on the same — on the same…” He fumbled for a second for the phrase. “…page.” 

“Get on with it.” Bubby huffed, and he could see the other’s resolve waver. 

“It’s you guys and me against the world.” He dictated, face grave, though with the visible stress and anxiety Bubby had learned to expect from the younger man. “…more specifically, a fucked up time god.” 

He let that hang in the air for a moment, watching his teammates (was it too late to back out of that?) and their expressions. Even the usually chatty Dr. Coomer was dead silent, and Benrey just watched with the mildest of intrigue. 

“I’ve been reliving this morning for the past… ever. Not metaphorically! Not metaphorically, but like some actual… Groundhog Day type shit.” He cringed as the words came out of his mouth, lightly shaking his head, and Bubby could _not_ blame him with the nonsense he was talking. 

“I just broke free this morning, at the test, which is why I was… y’know, acting all fucky, and. Aforementioned time god _probably_ won’t be happy with me!” He stretched on a nervous grin, laughing in an attempt to either diffuse the tension or retcon this into some kind of joke. 

Nobody said anything, and Bubby wasn’t entirely sure why “Gordon, there is no God!” flew out of his mouth, but it worked to break the silence. 

That seemed to stun the other, his mouth feebly opening and shutting in a stammer. “I — that’s — not relevant. We’re not gonna be beating up the biblical Jesus or anything, this isn’t… a _religious_ thing, Tommy’s kind of his own — _beast_.” 

God, what a fucking loon. 

...W. 

Wait. 

“…Tommy?” Benrey seemed to share his confusion, for once not seeming so detached and above it all. 

Bubby shook his head, almost feeling sorry for him. “God is dead!” He called, if only to knock Gordon off his rhythm. 

“Oh, he will be once we’re through with him!” Coomer chuckled, taking this completely at face value because _of course he was._ Bubby was starting to retract his previous thoughts of him being some kind of voice of reason here. 

Gordon grinned at someone buying into his cult bullshit. “That’s the spirit!” He pumped a fist in the air, Bubby shuddering with disgust at the question of what he’d just gotten himself roped into. Maybe he should’ve shot Gordon the second he saw him. “Oh, yeah, Benrey,” he added, all too casual, “Tommy’s a time god.” 

Bubby scoffed — this guy was full of shit. He took a beating to the head, had some radiation-fueled hallucination, or was just pulling some psychological horror prank to get back at Benrey. Whatever it was, they didn’t have time for games like this. 

…the more irrational part of him, though, thought back to that encounter in the break room. Maybe not a time god, but something definitely _was_ off about Tommy. It looked to be far deeper than simply reverting back to his survival instincts in the wake of the Resonance Cascade — something was _wrong_. He could see it in the other’s unfocused, manic eyes. 

But he sure as hell wasn’t about to listen to Gordon “Laughed At The Resonance Cascade” Freeman. He’d come to his own conclusion if he had to — the other’s “no secrets” rule be damned. He wasn’t about to let his words get twisted by that goddamn lunatic. 

At least he wasn’t alone in that sentiment, though. Benrey wasn’t exactly the height of _sanity_ , but the bar was damn low, and Bubby couldn’t help but snicker as he looked over to Gordon, circling his finger by his temple in a wordless _this guy’s crazy_ gesture. 

* * *

Tommy could only watch through the rafters as the Science Team fought through Black Mesa without him, fingers drumming the railing of a catwalk, blinking rapidly as his whirlwind of emotions threatened to boil over. 

Anxiety was the biggest one. That was what sent him on this wild quest to begin with — anxiety at his friends getting hurt, but apparently that was _such_ a crime that G-Man felt the need to put them all through it again. It was all too painful to watch — he felt Gordon’s pain at every bullet puncturing his radiation suit, all of the grief and weight of seeing his teammates shoot innocents, their blood on his hands. 

It was all happening again, but worst of all, Tommy wasn’t there to help him. Tommy was the one he trusted, the one he never fought with, the one who made him laugh, the one he was always patient and helpful with, and now he’d shut him out in favor of three maniacs that were clearly driving him insane. 

He and Benrey were friends, yeah, but… all Tommy saw when he looked at the guard now was wasted time. How could he ever have given so many chances to someone who treated Mr. Freeman _this_ badly? He felt a pang for his past self — the fear and sorrow at his so-called friends’ betrayals, how their pain hurt him just as much as Gordon’s — pouring all of his heart into these people who would’ve thrown _him_ to the soldiers too if the opportunity arose. 

Practically seeing red every time Benrey or Bubby opened their mouths to lob sarcastic jabs Gordon’s way, Tommy didn’t understand how he ever could’ve felt pain for either of them. Some _best friend_ Benrey was — so needlessly crude and heartless, tormenting people if not just killing them outright… how did Tommy ever think he could be an exception to the rule? 

He had to keep quiet as he cried, in a blend of the realization of his “ _friends”_ ’ true nature hitting him like a truck, and at the sight of Benrey watching with that dull amusement as he kicked Gordon down into a vat of Green Slime, needing _Coomer_ to intervene to keep him from holding him down until he drowned. 

Gordon managed to scramble out, frantically grabbing the edge of Coomer’s lab coat to wipe his face and get the contaminant out of his eyes, which had become a deep crimson with irritation. He managed to stagger off with a few hacking coughs, brushing the incident behind him as yet another instance of his teammates’ odd behavior— “‘s like taking care of a bunch of fifth graders, seriously…” — but for once, Tommy found himself with no such patience. 

Glaring into Benrey with malice he didn’t even think he was capable of in the beginning, much less towards someone he knew so dearly, Tommy’s fist clenched, and his friend went still. It took a few seconds for him to realize what happened, but it clicked when he saw the other’s wet sleeves no longer dripping. 

Time had stopped — for him, and him alone. A minute passed, and Benrey still didn’t move, simply staring ahead into a point of space — but Tommy could see his face turning blue with lack of air, and it was so much more _satisfying_ than it had any right to be. Nobody else had noticed yet, even when his eyes bulged in their sockets like one of those rubber squeeze toys he’d win at Chuck E. Cheese. 

Tommy realized he was smiling only when his cheeks started to ache, and just as he began to wonder if he could make Benrey pass out from this, Gordon finally noticed the other’s state. 

“You watchin’ the water?” He called over his shoulder, waiting a moment for a reply. When none came, he turned to approach the security guard — too forgiving for his own good, it hurt Tommy just to _watch_ — setting an uneasy hand on his shoulder. “Hey, man, we’re getting going, you should—” 

Time began to spin once more, commenced by a loud, unnaturally desperate gasp of air from Benrey as he suddenly keeled over, combat boots slipping against the wet floor as he stumbled and crashed into the sickly green water below. Tommy had to duck into another room to laugh, only just making out Gordon’s confused shout and the splashing of Benrey getting his overdue karma. 

“You — you _okay_ over there?” 

Several more sputters in response could be heard, Tommy turning back just in time to watch Gordon pull the other to safety — never mind that he’d been denied that luxury only minutes ago. 

“Put me on —” Benrey rasped, trying to act casual as he coughed into his sopping wet shirt, “put me on… America’s Funniest Home Videos.” 

That made Gordon howl with laughter, followed by a distant, “America’s Funniest Home Videos hosted by Tom Bergeron?!” “AFV sucks ass, you can do better!” from Coomer and Bubby, respectively. They all seemed to take the accident in stride, but as they continued to wander, Benrey notably didn’t pull any more pranks. 

_Good_. 

It was then Tommy realized that G-Man hadn’t stripped him of _all_ of his powers. He couldn’t rewind to the beginning, but _could_ make their run through Black Mesa an absolute horror show — make them _wish_ they could stay in that break room forever. Make Gordon sorry he’d _ever_ rejected Tommy’s kindness. 

He was still pretty rusty, but it wasn’t like he was performing a magic show. Rifts in time and space were hard to pull off perfectly, but perfection didn’t matter much. The intended size of the crater forming in the ground wasn’t important when it was sudden enough to twist Bubby’s ankle all the same. Maybe he wasn’t fluent in the Sweet Voice, but that only made the sudden high pitches and bright colors out of nowhere disorient them more. 

“Do you believe me _now?!_ ” Gordon snapped at Bubby when time rewound before their eyes, just for the chance to get a turret’s bullet to rip through his shoulder again. 

Tommy merrily skipped along at the sights of their struggles — there was no turning back now, and he wanted that to be a _threat_. He remembered G-Man‘s role in the beginning — everything played into his hands, even the worst of it all, and Tommy couldn’t help but smile to think it was _him_ this time. Not only space and time, but life and death — he created life in the form of Sunkist, and nothing gave him a thrill quite like teasing death as he warped space to make the barnacles choking Dr. Coomer nigh indestructible. 

That wasn’t all he spent his time (ha! Time! I-it, i-it’s funny, ‘cause…) on, of course, he had his own journey to make — creatures and unruly soldiers still saw him as a target, but he’d grown adept in his abilities, and adrenaline pumped through his veins as a troop of soldiers was ripped apart in a red mist by a large rift in space. 

Was he really only armed with a measly _pistol_ the first time? No wonder they struggled so much! 

One soldier remained, staggering back with wide eyes at the one-man-army who’d felled his teammates. The name wasn’t coming to Tommy, but — oh! He knew this man! The scars across his face were distinct as ever, this was the graduate from the first timeline! Such a small world! 

He grabbed for his rifle, with the trembling hands of a young man far in over his head. He looked awfully small in his clunky military gear, his red cap crooked and exposing his unkempt chestnut hair. 

Before Tommy could say anything, a spray of bullets was coming his way — with them, time slowed to a halt. He couldn’t stop time _everywhere_ , but he could localize it, he’d learned. The soldier boy gaped at the sight of the gunfire stopping in its tracks, Tommy casually grinning his way. 

He was at the mercy of a demigod of time and space, and Tommy wouldn’t hurt him, but he hoped he knew it. 

“Hello, sir!” He greeted, as the soldier’s hand eased off the trigger in confusion. It felt like forever ago he’d seen this man’s face, and giggled at a certain memory. It gave him an idea — an amusing role reversal, to bring it all full circle! Wouldn’t that be funny? 

“Hey — hey! I’ve got a, I’ve got a Beyblade in my other coat, y’ — y’ want it if you help me?” 

* * *

The past few days had been hell on all fronts. 

It was so much worse than Gordon remembered — but then again, last he remembered, there wasn’t a time god on their heels trying to get everyone killed. The oddities lined up clear as day — if there was some obstacle they hadn’t faced the first time, the odds were about… 99.9% that it was Tommy’s doing. 

That was something of a double edged sword. On one hand, it made everything all the more dangerous. They learned to walk light on their feet in the case of any floors caving in (which seemed to be Tommy’s preferred method of ruining their day — there must have been only about three fully functional legs between them with how many times they’d been tripped), as well as keep backup weapons on hand when bullets stopped working. 

On the other hand, though, it kept everyone together. Just as he’d ordered day one, there were no secrets kept amongst the Science Team. No splitting up — if absolutely necessary, a buddy system would be put in place. (And Gordon had long since learned his lesson about leaving Benrey and Bubby alone together, so that specific matchup managed to be avoided until now.) 

It may have just been him, but they all felt… closer, this time around. Even Bubby started to buy into his time loop story eventually, though it took a vivid description of Black Mesa’s sub levels (and their old shenanigans therein) to finally convert him. He still found himself feeling like a goddamn lunatic, but if nothing else, he had other lunatics around to feel a little less alone. 

Friends who bought into inane bullshit together stayed together. 

…that was cheesy. It wasn’t like _everything_ was hunky dory, but if nothing else, he could look at Benrey and Bubby and know, for once, that he could rely on them. That was more than could be said for the first run. There was no room for backstabbing anymore, not when the stakes were much higher, and Gordon supposed that was the one thing Tommy had done right. 

_One_ thing, he had to specify. He hadn’t done anything right for them since that first run, before he lost his mind — and Gordon chose to believe there was a before. Maybe that was too trusting of him, but he didn’t want to deny himself the period of time where Tommy truly _was_ a friend to them all. Despite what he was doing now, he helped Gordon when he lost his arm way back when, he was overall a good guy — there was no hidden malice, no weird obsession… but _something_ had definitely happened, between then and now, and it hurt Gordon’s head to think about. 

Not like there was much room to slow down and think around here. When he wasn’t distracted by killing headcrab zombies, he was by whatever odd Seinfeldian conversation his teammates had found themselves in. (They turned into heated debates on occasion, and Gordon held firm in his conviction that _no, Bubby, hand sanitizer isn’t_ spicy _, what the fuck._ ) Even with the similar beats to the first run, Gordon still had to stay alert — being viciously hunted by the US military was no easier to deal with the third time than the first. 

Speaking of, the Science Team’s least favorite solo operative was still around. 

Somehow, Benrey had been separated from the rest of the group, and in the hunt to track him down, they one again found themselves face to face with… fuck, okay, Gordon couldn’t remember the guy’s name. He’d chalk it up to the time loops, but honestly, he forgot this guy’s name the second after he met him in the _first_ timeline, too. 

The soldier faced them with the same amount of bratty annoyance as before, if not more outright aggressive. Just some loony gun-toting kid(? He felt younger than Gordon, anyway), who was either brave or stupid enough to not flinch at the sight of these two maniac scientists and a guy in a radiation suit holding him hostage. Forzen, the teenager’s name was, and they’d only managed to force it out of him at gunpoint. 

“You guys’re so annoying,” he whined, wiping blood from his face with a balled fist. “Should just let me kill you.” 

Gordon had to stifle a laugh at that statement, trying to keep his gun steady. It only really registered _now_ just how much this guy acted and sounded like Benrey. Sweet Jesus, there were two of them. “How many men are you with? Where’s the rest of your squad?” He demanded, all the more infuriated by the only mildly annoyed look on the other’s face. Man, he did _not_ miss being… however old. 

“I’m a solo op.” He answered, idly swinging his arms at his side — it was better than his gun being out, but still put Gordon on edge. “Always been the only member of, uh, Team… s… Nice.” 

Gordon sighed, not sure what else he expected. “Who do you work for — how’d you find us?” Nobody around him was any good at answering questions, but he hoped Forzen would, at the very least, take one. 

“Oh, uh…” He droned, staring off into space in thought — somehow past the three guns of varying sizes pointed his way. Again, either the bravest person alive or the dumbest. “You ever heard of… Beyblade?” 

Oh my God. Gordon was going to slam his head into the nearest concrete wall. One, he’d completely repressed this interaction the first time and now the absolute insanity of it was hitting him like a sack of bricks. Two, the implication that he might not know what a Beyblade is — he wasn’t that old, was he? Twenty-seven?! Was this how far from grace he’d fallen? 

“I have!” Dr. Coomer proudly stated. “Beyblade, or _ベイブレード_ , _Beiburēdo_ , diminutive Bey, from the diminutive of Beigoma, is a line of spinning top toys originally —” A hand wave from Gordon silenced him. This was definitely some kind of military tactic — confounding them into stalling until the real threat appeared. Gordon wouldn’t fall for it. 

“What do Beyblades have to do with this?” He shook his head, glaring Forzen down. They didn’t have all day. 

“I was gonna leave you guys alone, ‘cause I just wanna graduate, and… Irate Gamer just put up a video about Castlevania NES and I wanna get home and watch it,” this was flying completely over Gordon’s head, and he acutely wondered if Forzen was even _processing_ his situation — did he really think he’d just be able to go home and _watch YouTube?_ “But there was this tall twitchy guy who said he’d get me a Beyblade — Ultimate Dragoon with _three_ Bit-Beasts in it —” 

Forzen’s face was lighting up like a kid on Christmas as he started rambling on about the Beyblade with lore that maybe Gordon _was_ too old to understand, but he couldn’t process any of it, only seeing red at what he’d just learned. Tall twitchy guy — that _had_ to be Tommy. He was just toying with them at this point. 

The soldier wasn’t the one Gordon was angry with, but his hands shook with rage nonetheless as he thrust the barrel of his gun into Forzen’s chest, silencing him. He looked caught off-guard for once, putting his hands up in surrender — Gordon didn’t know _what_ his fury had twisted him into, but even Dr. Coomer and Bubby were looking at him oddly. “You tell your friend,” he began through clenched teeth, “that we’re not going anywhere, and that he shouldn’t be bribing random _kids_ to get what he wants.” 

“It’s certainly creative!” Coomer cut in brightly. 

“ _Please_ don’t _compliment_ him.” Gordon groaned, the comment being just enough to pull him back down to Earth. He didn’t like getting angry. He _hated_ it, even — he was an emotional guy on all fronts, and laughed and cried just as much as he shouted out in frustration, but the former two didn’t make him burn with shame like he did now. He wasn’t gonna become a violent freak like Tommy, he wasn’t, _wasn’t, wasn’t._

His shoulders relaxed, lowering his gun slightly, gaze softening as he hoped he appeared to Forzen less like another enemy and more like a hope spot. He watched as the teenager scampered off, stepping back with a sigh. When he knew the other was gone, he ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “This is driving me fucking _crazy._ ” 

“It happens!” Bubby chimed in, allowing a beat of silence as he glanced over his shoulder into the hallway Forzen had vanished down, before stating, “I think we should have killed him.” 

Not a surprise, but not necessarily welcome, either. “I don’t think so,” was all Gordon could manage. “Let’s just keep moving.” 

They later found Benrey again, sitting with his feet propped up on the dash of one of the train cars as he idly played with a gun in his hands. He gave them a bored wave and hopped down, and Gordon was long beyond questioning where he went off to. He operated on a plane far different than everyone else’s, and Gordon could only be thankful that he didn’t seem to be using that malevolently anymore. 

It was easy for him to forget that… he wasn’t all too different in that regard. Sure, he couldn’t rise from the dead and phase through walls, but he had seen into countless timelines — had seen what his friends looked like in the face of death, had learned what it was like to live with a lopped off arm. He knew things about the others even _they_ didn’t, and it was… uncomfortable, to think of having that amount of power. Humble, easily stressed, once-started-crying-at-the-sight-of-a-Pomeranian-in-a-stroller Gordon Freeman, had knowledge of the unknowable. 

As on-track as he tried to stay, there wasn’t any shame in avoiding tragedy. May as well use his abilities for good. Even at night, the New Mexico desert was sweltering, and the thick HEV suit and hot blood soaking into his skin didn’t do any favors. It brought familiarity, though — he remembered when they were first out here, talking about their dreams to the sound of Bubby and Benrey fucking around with a soccer ball they found. 

He sighed — how he’d changed since then. He cringed every time he caught his reflection in stainless steel, or a body of water. His hair looked like it had somehow gotten _longer_ since the beginning, unkempt and overgrowing his ponytail holder like weeds strangling a garden. His eyes were tinged red with what he could only assume was stress, accompanied by a pounding in his head every time he stopped to think. Bright lights only made it worse, and Gordon began to fear that exposure to Tommy’s powers had _done_ something to him. Like what happened when you gazed upon an angel’s true form. 

_I’ll worry about that when I get out of here_ , he kept telling himself, to the point where he dreaded and anticipated escaping to the surface in equal measure. God, what would he tell Joshua? What was it even like outside anymore? Was there even a way to tell? 

In a rare moment of heavy silence, Gordon looked out past the mountaintops and wind-worn cliff walls to the stars. The sky was vast and cloudless, hundreds of stars peppering the inky blackness… he stood on his toes to try and determine if anything could be seen beyond the sandstone, when a sudden chill ran up his spine despite the heat. 

(There’s nothing there.) 

Mouth going dry, Gordon tore his eyes away and looked over his shoulder for any sign of Dr. Coomer. The tension in his muscles lifted when he found the old scientist in an animated conversation with Bubby. Gordon couldn’t tell what it was over, but when Bubby pointed out towards the sky, he took it as a cue to walk over and stop that train of thought before it started. 

“Hey, uh,” he hadn’t actually planned what to say before opening his mouth, but then again, neither did these two, ever. “I’m gonna go sit in the shade, y’ wanna talk about plans for tomorrow?” He’d grinned as he managed to pull them away, sitting down beneath a thankfully pigeon-less perch. 

“So,” he started, wondering acutely what’d change. “what’re your dreams, guys? Like,” he picked up a miniscule pebble between his thumb and pointer finger, then started rolling it in his palms in thought. “For when we get out of here. Hopefully together, I don’t wanna lose any of you.” 

That last bit just flew out, as things from Gordon’s mouth tended to, but it was true. He watched Bubby in particular, the scientist pushing up his glasses in thought. He looked almost relaxed, which was a rarity, but one Gordon was thankful for. He still couldn’t shake the sight of the other’s arm being ripped off in his place, how he was hauled away swearing in betrayal as he bled out. 

This was different. Here, Bubby looked relatively at peace. Seeming to catch Gordon’s gaze, he cleared his throat and took it as a motion to answer. “I would like to go to outer space!” His usual shark-toothed grin returned. “Leave this shithole world for Jupiter, brave the Red Storm myself.” 

“Oh, wow — I don’t know if that’s, uh… possible, but if anyone can do it, it’s you, Bub.” Gordon smiled, feeling closer to the other than before — Bubby not knowing about the HEV suit trackers probably had to do with it, the darker corner of his mind snarked, but he chose to believe it was more genuine than that. “Can we come with?” 

The smile fell into a sneer, Bubby’s eyebrows knitting together. “What? No.” 

Well, it was… worth a shot. Gordon just awkwardly laughed, looking from Coomer to Benrey, the latter of whom stood leaning against a wall. Again, heavy silence fell over the group as Gordon just… stared at Benrey, waiting for him to speak. 

Benrey stared back, not moving a muscle. 

Did he… know he was being prompted? It was hard to tell with him sometimes — Benrey didn’t really seem… _conscious_ unless spoken to, but at the same time, a staring contest to establish dominance seemed _exactly_ like something he’d pull. 

Gordon bit the bullet. “…what about you, Ben—” 

“ _I_ want to be a boxer!” Coomer cut in cheerfully. “I founded Black Mesa’s underground boxing ring, you know! The weight of our crimes against humanity make for great lifting practice.” 

Creepy nonsequiturs from Coomer were hardly a surprise anymore, but Gordon still blanched at that one. “…I imagine.” He motioned to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear, only to wince in pain at a knot getting tangled in a crevice of his HEV suit. Holy _shit_ did he look like a wreck — everyone here did, with the blood and dirt all over them, but still, he was gonna need a decade long shower after this. “You’re a damn good fighter. I think it’d be cool to see you in the ring.” 

Coomer smiled that Kindly Grandpa smile. “Why, thank you, Gordon!” 

Gordon did what he could to return it, but felt it came out as more of an Exhausted Single Dad smile. Blinking to Benrey, he repeated, “what about you, Ben?” 

“...Rey.” Benrey finished, sounding the closest thing to uncomfortable as he could manage. Fair enough, that nickname just kind of slipped out. “Gonna… go eat some chili.” 

Gordon waited for elaboration. None came. 

“Is that… your dream?” 

“Yeh.” 

Wheezing in amusement, he just shook his head. “Okay. You’re a simple man with simple needs, I guess.” 

“I wanna play th’ new TF2 update and eat chili.” Benrey corrected himself, still staring into Gordon like he was about to duel him or something. 

“You like TF2?” Gordon blinked. The other said nothing, presumably having used up his talking quota for the day. Shifting his sitting position to be more comfortable, Gordon thought aloud, “y’know, the me from - I dunno, maybe a month ago, if you put it all together, would think I’m going… _fucking_ insane to say this, but after this, it might be fun to go to your place and play some video games together. Do something normal, that’s not… living the same hour over and over again.” 

For the first time, Benrey’s lip quirked into the slightest of smiles. It was short-lived, as he went back to staring off into space after a second, but that was enough of an answer. 

They weren’t about to sleep outside — not in the open desert, potentially victim to both roaming soldiers and spacial rift-induced avalanches. Holing up in a missile silo for the night wasn’t the _ideal_ place to sleep, especially not when he spotted glowing golden pinpricks watching him from across the darkened hallway, unsure if they were a nightmare or not, but he’d endured worse. 

Back to moving in the morning they went, peppered by Dr. Coomer’s predictions of the amount of time they’d have before reaching the Lambda Lab. Gordon felt an uncomfortable itch to think that, soon, they’d be beyond the point of the first timeline. From there, he would be truly blind… what then? There were still threats out here aside from Tommy, still monsters to fight and soldiers to kill. It wouldn’t end with him. 

Gordon wasn’t _ready_ for more. He was so _tired_. 

(He tried not to what was the word, GMod? …feeling it was unfair, but to be completely safe, he shot the scientist that told them about the GPS trackers in his suit square in the head before he could open his mouth. “Sorry, instinct!” He’d shouted as he barreled on out of the room. His stomach turned to kill an innocent, but he could _not_ risk that goddamn blackout again.) 

It was coming over the horizon again, and though he knew Bubby and Benrey hadn’t been left to their devices, and had no room to plan anything even if they were, revisiting it still brought Gordon a visceral discomfort. 

He didn’t understand much of the conversation Tommy and that suited man had had before him last time, but he remembered the latter saying that Gordon’s sacrifice had been a necessary one. 

Was that still the case? 

He flexed his right hand’s fingers, relishing the movement while he could still make it. If it was his fate to get his arm viciously severed with a combat dagger for the sake of his friends, then he’d face it with dignity, but the thought only made him realize how far their journey must’ve been from being over. They were tight-knit now, but would they remain so in the face of even _more_ tragedy? 

Of course he’d since given his teammates the debriefing on all of this (the basics, anyway — lost arm, time loops, Tommy’s a bitch, etc.), but it made him cringe no less when, what felt like all too soon, they crossed the familiar **SURFACE ACCESS** hallway. 

“You guys don’t have room to fuckin’…” Gordon started, thinking aloud as he stared into that fateful room, the dimly glowing medical station, in retrospect, an all too obvious trap. “scheme about me this time, right?” 

Benrey’s shadowed eyes flickered from the room to Gordon, and he offered the smallest of shrugs. “Only thing we’ve been scheming about is…” he smacked his lips, gears turning in his head for a suitable bit. “…how delicious the soda.” 

It was funny, but Gordon couldn’t find it in him to laugh. “There’s not even any soda around.” Like the strangest bad omen in existence, every soda machine they came across had been shot open and emptied completely. “Damn Tommy’s been hoarding our soda.” 

“Gordon, I’m thirsty!” Coomer piped up. 

“Go drink your own blood like a bat or something.” The jokes aside, Gordon’s limbs felt heavy looking into this room. There was a hallway off to the side they’d have no trouble passing through — this med bay room served as nothing but a lure, but Gordon would be lying if it said it wasn’t working. It wasn’t like he needed a medical station or anything, he just needed… 

Closure. 

A confirmation, for once and for all, that things were different this time. 

He glanced at his teammates, to no real result. They only offered silent glances back. It wasn’t their decision to make, but part of him wished it was, so they’d do it for him. 

His legs felt like lead as he stepped down the hallway, metallic footsteps echoing against the concrete walls of the silent building. The threshold of the room with the med kit was passed both all too soon and all too slowly — agonizing regardless. He kept trying to calm himself, with reassurances that nothing would happen, but that was easier to believe in theory than in practice. 

Especially when the lights abruptly cut off, making him want to hurl on the spot at the familiar horror. He tensed, preparing himself for the hard fist of a soldier to collide against his temple, to be kicked around like a ragdoll, torn apart and bled dry all over again. 

It didn’t happen. 

Gordon exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. The lights were still knocked out — the insensitive prank only one person here who lacked the empathy and critical thinking skills to care would pull. He _really_ wasn’t in the mood for it. “Benrey, I have PTSD, like, nine million times over now. Do _not_ do this to me.” 

“Whuh?” Benrey asked from behind him, likely still standing by the doorway. He sounded just as confused as Gordon did — which was a deeply uncomfortable concept for a multitude of reasons. 

None of which he had time to process. 

As if violating his mind itself, a familiar voice boomed through Gordon’s head, echoing across the walls of his skull, chilling him to the bone — two words he never wanted to hear again, much less _here_. 

“ _Mr. Freeman…_ ” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's Chapter 4! I think maybe this was the funnest one for me to write - I really love the Science Team dynamic in this fic. Yay for friendship! 
> 
> Some fun facts ahead:  
> -I headcanon Gordon as having ADHD (because of Wayne and how Wayne's said Gordon's personality is based on himself) and I feel it's pretty apparent in this chapter with his fidgeting and stuff. ^^  
> -I wrote out the "Gordon telling everyone else about the time loops" conversation prior to deciding I'd write it from Bubby's POV, so I had to fumble for an excuse as to why he'd pipe in about God being dead, lol. In general, I like to mimic the way conversations flow in canon, but some stuff is hard to squeeze into a mostly-serious fic.  
> -The scene with Tommy choking Benrey was one of my first ideas for this fic. The AFV references just appeared as I wrote XD  
> -Author's note, I have no strong opinions on AFV, I just thought it'd be fitting for Bubby to bash it.  
> -Forzen being a teenager wasn't a headcanon I had prior to this fic, it just kinda came as I wrote, but I really like it. He's just some poor bratty 18 year old that got roped into the military from video game propaganda and just wants to go home and watch Irate Gamer, man.
> 
> Next up on the FINALE(tm) of Stop Time: (Benrey voice) THE BIG FIGHT, some absurd content warnings, lots of bodily harm, and everything wrapped up in a nice little bow (I hope).
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments are appreciated <33


	5. Sunkistscape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S HERE IT'S HERE IT'S HERE IT'S HERE. I was going back and forth on when to post this, until I decided "screw it, I'll put it up now" XD
> 
> Before I get into the sappy thank you notes and things proper, some content warnings: This boss fight contains body horror on dogs and the deaths of aforementioned dog-like creatures, as well as one joke about killing dogs. In general, too, it's on the heavier side in terms of violence, so there's your heads up. 
> 
> Anyway, that stuff aside, a very big thank you to everyone who's read this fic! I hope it's been enjoyable, and that this ending satisfies! 
> 
> Enjoy!

The room lit up in a brilliant gold, and there Gordon could see him. He floated in the air around a foot off the ground, arms outstretched, lab coat billowing out behind him like the wings of an angel. His body was illuminated in that holy yellow glow, nearly burning Gordon’s retinas in at the sight. Gordon always knew he had some otherworldly ability, but _oh, here he appeared almost godlike._

Still, though, his wet, bloodshot eyes, even as they shone with an inhuman power, betrayed his mortality. They twitched, his crimson, bulging sclera stark against the sun-colored galaxies glowing in his irises. Gordon’s focus blurred in and out, unsure if it was Tommy doing something to his head or something else entirely, but he couldn’t bear to look away — not when he was finally face-to-face with the being all of his suffering had led him to. 

A thick, murky mixture of blood and soda stained his clothing, crusty and hardened against the fabric of his shirt and coat. (Gordon didn’t know whose blood it was, and a chill ran up his spine just _imagining_ it.) His tie had been pulled out of place, crookedly dangling over the red shirt it was usually tucked into. He looked like an absolute wreck — hair greasy and disheveled, strands sticking out in all directions — to say nothing of his smile. Yellowed teeth and gums bared, his mouth was stretched wide into a hateful grin, lips curled back like a rabid dog. 

Despite the glowing, the visible power of his form, it gave the impression of not a god — but a mortal’s mockery of one. 

It was terrifying. 

It was disgusting. 

It was almost beautiful. 

His voice held no power, dissonant with that holy aura, quiet and subdued as ever, even when it came from the same mouth as that sickening, toothy grin. “Hi, everyone…” He spoke, almost sheepishly, as if he was performing a practiced speech for the first time. “Really, I di — uh, I, I didn’t… think you’d get this far. But the… Mr. Freeman’s had… more than enough time to practice, right?” 

The thinly veiled fury in his words wasn’t lost on Gordon — the unspoken annoyance that they’d lived to make it here at all. Not wanting to give his captor the time of day, Gordon readied his weapon, relieved to find, out of the corner of his eye, the others doing the same. It was four on one — they could handle that, right? 

Tommy’s smile dropped into a grimace as he stared down the business end of the MP5 Benrey was pointing his way. “It’s horrible what killing’s done to you guys.” He stated, voice brittle. “Remember when we’d just sit in the break room?” Tommy stepped down to the ground, with light feet and an ease that made Gordon think he’d done it countless times before — just how much of his human nature was a façade? “Watch _Minions_ , talk about our dreams, drink some… Sprite Zero? What happened to that? Now everything’s so… _violent_ , so fucked up…” 

He was positively delusional, Gordon decided. He _had_ to have been to think any of this was a good idea to begin with, but that cinched it — whatever power trip had skewed his morals, it must’ve scrambled his memories, too, or at least that was what Gordon was leaning towards. It was easier to think it was all just… a regular man driven mad with power. Though he hated him now, Gordon still couldn’t bear to think Tommy had always been this… unhinged. 

He couldn’t dwell on it, raising his gun in an impulse motion and firing before the nonsensical ramblings could continue. 

Tommy’s head snapped towards him as he pulled the trigger, the world freezing. Any semblance of his usual light-hearted bravado was gone, dropped in an instant as he stared wide-eyed into Gordon, fist clenched and shaking with fury. He felt as if those flaring, luminescent eyes were staring past the bullet suspended in midair, past his weapon, right into his very soul. 

“That’s just what I’ve been saying, Mr. Freeman.” 

Usually, an angry Tommy sounded… bratty, like a child experiencing injustices for the first time, the trauma too fresh to be jaded at, but here, his voice was low and level, and that was somehow worse than the unhinged shrieking and crying. 

“All I’ve done is try and be your friend. All I’ve done is protect you. I never laid one _finger_ on you, Mr. Freeman.” Tommy practically spat. “I did it all to keep you safe, after you lost your arm, a jillion timelines ago. But you never listen.” Tommy scoffed, and for a moment, Gordon found himself falling for it. _Was_ he the ungrateful one? Would things really have worked out if he just — stuck it out? Played along? 

Then he remembered the break room party. 

That was what Tommy wanted. Not friendship — not anymore — but control. The control he’d lost in the first timeline, finally got the taste of, and became ravenous for more. He didn’t want to keep Gordon safe for his sake — he wanted to keep him under his thumb. 

Playing along meant suicide, no _matter_ how goddamn much Tommy wanted to sugarcoat it. 

“It doesn’t mean anything t’ you.” He shook his head, sounding almost resigned as his eyes studied Gordon closely. He was looking at his arm — the fateful injury long since undone. His gaze hardened. “But it means _everything_ to me.” 

Time flashed back, and Gordon couldn’t even blink to acknowledge the ripple in space, not even realizing the bullet had been redirected until it ripped into his shoulder, eliciting a scream of agony with the sudden explosion of pain. He stumbled back, nearly dropping to the floor, and could hear Tommy’s giggle echoing in his head at the sight. 

It felt like his side was on fire, the pins and needles spreading to his arm, which became painfully numb. Upon trying to reach for his gun, Gordon’s heart stopped in his chest as he realized he couldn’t move it. 

Of course. Tommy was one of the smartest people in Black Mesa — scratch that, the whole fucking universe, maybe, given his true nature — he’d spent decades upon decades learning the ins and outs of the human body, in all of those books he prided himself on so dearly. Loopy as he appeared, he was always so calculating, far more than he let on. He knew just the nerve to tear to render an arm completely immobile — and that was only the beginning. 

It hung limply at his side, pounds of dead weight attached to a torn, bleeding shoulder — the bullet wound was small, as searingly painful as it was, but that small shot was all that was necessary to paralyze his limb. Just one nerve was all it took. 

Gordon shuddered, breathing shallow in his bloody anguish as Dr. Coomer abandoned his weapon and ran over to tend to his friend. But even that moment of comfort wasn’t deserved in Tommy’s eyes, as in a flash, the old scientist was blinked out of existence. He could do so much worse if he pleased, making Gordon a prisoner in his own body if he pissed him off enough, and as cathartic as it felt in the moment to be fighting Tommy once and for all, Gordon began to fear just how dangerous the forces he was baiting were. 

Through his involuntary tears, he could just catch Tommy’s expression — watching him suffer with a detached, clinical satisfaction, a million lightyears away from the empathy that drove him here to begin with. His glare flickered from person to person — Coomer had managed to wander back in from wherever he’d been teleported. “But you keep being so — you’re just so _selfish_.” Tommy hissed. Gordon still reeled from the pain, but even in his state, he couldn’t hide his disgust at the implication that this was _his_ fault somehow. 

“You just wanna — y-you just wanna play your… your _game_ , don’t you?” Revulsion dripped from Tommy’s voice at the words, but he pulled back before it could consume him, expression softening with faux sadness as he sighed longingly, “I’unno what keeps you from just staying in that hallway forever, Mr. Freeman. We’d all be so happy if you just — if you had your passport, and you didn’t mess up the test, and you weren’t so mean.” He frowned, shaking his head in disappointment. “But you never did.” 

Engrossed in the other’s words as he was, Gordon jolted in surprise when the lights shut off once more. Immediately, machine gun fire could be heard to his right — Bubby, probably, sick of the stalling — but there was no sound of impact, and Gordon screwed up his face in confusion, holding his good hand out to pause. 

“Hey, hold your fire, we don’t know where he—” His sentence crumbled in his throat as another, far more alarming noise could be heard. 

Something heavy shambling about, growling from all angles, claws scraping against the concrete. The light of Tommy’s eyes did nothing to illuminate their source, only the corners of the proud grin stretched on his face as he easily hovered off the ground. 

“And I’m gonna make you regret it.” 

And then something was clamping down like a vice on Gordon’s thigh, ripping clean through the metal of his HEV suit. The massive jaws of a beast he couldn’t see through the darkness were puncturing his flesh, lifting him with frightening ease and shaking like a ragdoll. The moment he spent fumbling trying to grab his weapon with his good hand felt like a decade of being torn apart atom by atom. 

And then he pulled the trigger, and with a _crack!_ , the pressure eased, followed by a hearty thud to the concrete as Gordon landed on his feet. A confused, terrified “ _whh…_ ” was all he could manage — this was no alien he’d encountered in Black Mesa before, that much he knew. “What the fuck was that?” He uttered, voice hoarse, and when no response came — simply the barrage of gunfire from his teammates also wrangling these _beasts_ — he repeated, louder, “what the _fuck_ was that?!” 

Swaying off-balance between his wounded leg and immobile arm, vision blurring and splintering with damage to his glasses he didn’t even remember the source of, he couldn’t see what he’d just shot until the light of a ball of fire from Bubby soared past over his head. 

An embryonic mound of dogs, like a massive tumor of snouts and legs. The head he shot was prone, still against the floor, only one eye and ear visible as the others vanished into a vague blob of golden fur, claws, and half-formed appendages. The jaw that had just been around his leg was nowhere near the rest of its face, bloodied teeth sprouting where they didn’t belong — along the roof of its mouth, lining its tongue, growing from the flesh of its nose… 

It was gone in a flash as the flames hit their target, but a flash was all that was needed to turn Gordon’s stomach. His first thought was guilt — _I just killed a dog_ , but the second was revulsion and horror — _that wasn’t a dog._ Soon enough, the revulsion and horror turned to cackling laughter at the absurdity of it all — what the fuck? _What the fuck?!_

“You think I could make the perfect dog on my first try?” Tommy called, addressing that marvel of medical malpractice like it was nothing more than a mildly embarrassing rough draft. “It took nine years of love an’ care to get Sunkist right. But I think nine years is long enough to wait for perfection, don’t you?” He giggled, lightly flexing his fingers, and with a flash, Bubby’s fire was on Gordon’s back, immolating his ponytail. Tommy only smiled, looking hellish amongst the flames as Gordon frantically waved to put it out, Bubby himself cringing and shouting an apology. 

“Careful, man!” Gordon shouted back, coughing at the acrid smell of his hair burning — the HEV suit was heat-resistant, thank God, but he did _not_ want it to reach his skin. “‘S way harder to put out a fire with only _one arm!_ Fucker shot me, I can’t move it anymore!” 

“Want me to cut it off?” Benrey offered, barely audible beneath the crackling of the flames, the gunfire, and the guttural, fleshy howling of the Sunkist prototypes. 

Unable to tell if he was genuine or just doing a bit, then deciding it was not out of character for Benrey to legitimately pull that, Gordon answered, “ _Nnnno!_ Don’t do that!” 

“But you, you already did it once, sir, what’s another?” Tommy sneered, voice sickly sweet. 

“Shut up — _you’re not on my side!_ ” Gordon snapped. He couldn’t see shit — could only hear the calamity, forms dropping to the floor that he could only hope weren’t his friends. He was unused to shooting with this hand, gun shaking in his grasp as he swore in frustration, trying to pull the trigger on a prototype at Dr. Coomer’s heels. His finger ached by the time he managed to fire, and there was no yelp or drop to the ground when he did, so he could only assume he shot at empty air. Shit. 

Bubby huffed as an explosion from… _some_ kind of weapon he’d picked up …lit up the room, revealing the downed corpses of five massive dog amalgamations, and several more prowling the corners of the room. Damalgamations? …nah. They were even more unpleasant to look at when wounded, the bloody chunks torn away from bullets exposing half-formed tails and limbs on the inside, some muscles even growing golden fur of their own. “What kind of scientist fucks up so hard at making a dog that they make five hundred _tumors_ with _legs?!_ ” Bubby snarked, eliciting a strained chuckle from Gordon. 

“I don’t think this is science anymore, this is, like, an affront to God.” Remembering the medical station in this room, he made a staggered dash towards the end wall. “If I were to talk to a God, I don’t think that was… in his plan.” This was all too casual a conversation for their situation, but if Gordon didn’t grab onto something to laugh at, he’d fucking explode. The dim red light of the medical station illuminated nothing, and he had to squint to even tell what he was grabbing for. 

“God usually has a plan for us.” Bubby answered, thankfully on the same wavelength of casual danger conversations as he shot at another one, “I don’t think regenerating Labradors are in it.” 

“They’re Golden Retrievers!” Tommy whined, seeming more upset at the misnomer than “nine years of love and care” being undone before his very eyes. _He probably thinks he can just rewind and fix it, huh?_ Gordon thought bitterly as he pressed a crooked bandage to the wound in his shoulder. They’d show him that was no longer an option. 

Fighting by the flashes of fire and Tommy’s powers grew quick to adapt to, and while the fucked up anatomy of these creatures was revolting — straight out of a horror movie — it reduced them to slow shambles. For some, their real threat — the sharp vice-like jaws — were placed so inconveniently that they couldn’t bite anything if they tried. Gordon was glad to put them out of their misery — he recalled, distantly, hearing Bubby be described as “scientists slapping together chemicals until they made a person”, and that felt appropriate here. Tumors of fur and flesh slapped together over the course of nine years until they made a perfect immortal dog. 

Gordon swore up and down that it was just the adrenaline and not his actual sense of humor when he burst out cackling at Benrey’s battle cry of “THIS IS _WEAK_ , I KILLED MY NEIGHBOR’S DOG WHEN HE STOLE MY PSN PASSWORD” as he unloaded his, uh… passport? (Gordon still didn’t know what the fuck that weapon was called) into the cluster of eyes making up one of the prototypes’ face. 

It was _not_ pleasant to listen to, which, thinking on it, was probably why they’d all decided to fill the air with absurd one-liners and battle cries. It was preferable to Tommy’s deranged laughter and the snarls and skittering noises of the prototypes. “Gordon, do you think with every Sunkist clone we kill, he grows stronger?” Coomer asked, seeming more intrigued by than afraid of these creatures. 

“I should hope not.” Gordon shuddered, squinting into the shadows to tell how many were left as he pointed his gun at the ready — not like he could shoot all too well with his non-dominant hand, but it was better safe than sorry. He jolted in surprise to just catch a glimpse of one crawling down the wall, its seven legs skittering against the concrete as its too-long tongue lolled out of its mouth. A gunshot sounded, and Gordon practically fell backwards to avoid being crushed by the creature as it dropped to the ground. 

“If we have to fight Sunkist, I’m leaving that to you guys. I’m not killing a dog.” 

“You’ve killed many dogs, Gordon!” Coomer stated cheerfully, his gun still smoking. 

“I — can these even be _described_ as dogs?” 

“They’re the _perfect_ dogs!” Tommy interjected, the bullets flying his way simply arcing around with a flick of his wrist. “They just don’t like — they don’t like _mean_ people.” 

The _audacity_ of this bitch. Gordon just made a noise of distaste, hoping it succinctly described his feelings on the matter. 

It all felt painfully familiar to struggle through such a battle with only one functional arm, but he supposed that was the point. This was Tommy’s way of taking back his help — if Gordon didn’t accept it, he didn’t deserve it. He was reasonably upset — _infuriated_ , even, wanting to cry again out of fear and frustration every time he missed a shot or dropped his gun, feeling once more like that useless load — but he tried to brave it, to prove to Tommy that he never needed his twisted idea of help. 

When the last dog was finally put down — three of its eleven and a half limbs blown off by a grenade, some anomaly of science keeping it alive through four headshots, only stopping when completely eviscerated by an explosion with a wet, blood-curdling howl — it was somehow not yet over. All Gordon wanted was to slip into a coma, but it wasn’t over. Tommy still stood, not seeming the least bit bothered by the sight of his massacred creations. 

Turning their weapons on the man himself was easier said than done — bullets were easily redirected, dodged, blipped out of existence. All he did was laugh like a child at the playground as he hopped about, dancing along the corners and walls like he wasn’t baiting death. One shot was all it would take — he couldn’t rewind time with a bullet in his brain — it was just a matter of landing it. 

Gordon’s past self would’ve felt sick to see Gordon now laughing proudly when a bullet pierced Tommy’s arm, earning a surprised shriek, but the laughter quickly died when Tommy looked back up at him. His eyes practically bulged out of his head with rage, and his hand clutched his hurt arm — looking almost like he’d break a bone clean in half with how hard he was flexing it. He bore his teeth like one of the downed mutated dogs, and instead of the shrill, furious yell Gordon expected, something somehow even worse came out of his mouth. 

The Sweet Voice — orbs in a stream of yellow to red, accompanied not with a light hum or whistle, but a piercing, high-pitched screech. Gordon doubled over to cover his ears — one with a hand, the other buried into the crook of his shoulder, but that did nothing to muffle the shrill noise reaching pitches and volume he knew no man-made sound was capable of. Shutting his eyes tight, trying to block out the painfully bright flashes of yellow and red visible even through the thin film of his eyelids, he could feel something _burst_ in his head. 

Like popping an eardrum on an airplane, but popped eardrums didn’t drip down with a hot, iron-smelling liquid. His own scream came out muffled, as did everything going on around him, and for once, he found himself _wishing_ for the loud chaos again. 

He forced himself to open his eyes, even through the flashing of the painfully abused Sweet Voice threatening to give him a goddamn seizure. He feared if he looked too hard, his eyes might just explode like his eardrums had. The other scientists were brought to their knees by the sensory torture, Benrey standing completely unaffected, watching Tommy with a vague annoyance, the man himself floating amidst it all, yellow to red orbs circling his head in a pair of halos. 

Benrey was saying something. Coomer and Bubby were saying something. 

Gordon could only hear the Sweet Voice. 

The Sweet Voice, and something equally unpleasant: Tommy’s voice clear as day, echoing in his head — the other’s mouth didn’t move as he glared into Gordon, long past anything even _resembling_ their old friendship anymore. 

I DID EVERYTHING FOR _YOU_ , MISTER FREEMAN.

I JUST WANTED TO HELP YOU.

AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME.

Between the searing pain in his ears, his arm, his leg, _everywhere_ , Gordon managed to grit his teeth and yell, yell loud enough that it pierced even his damaged ears — “YOU NEVER DID _SHIT_ FOR ME, TOMMY! YOU RUINED MY LIFE — _YOU DON’T GET TO CALL THAT HELP, **YOU FUCKING FREAK!**_ _”_ His voice broke, cracking and joining the low muffle of everything else. His breathing came sharp and fast — his head pounded with the dizzying lights, he was fucking deaf, his brain was leaking out of his ears, he was going to _die_ here. 

Pulling his palm away from the side of his head, it came out smeared in blood. Gordon felt a little sick at the sight — _God,_ he’d lost so much blood here. Even if they beat Tommy, would they even live to get medical attention? What if he got his suit removed and just dropped dead without the morphine? That possibility was growing likelier by the second, and it took all of Gordon’s resolve to not just… succumb and let Tommy win. 

He forced himself to his feet — difficult with only one arm and a fucked up calf — swaying off balance as the afterimages of the Sweet Voice still bored into his retinas. His heart was hammering in his chest as he looked around the dimming room for his teammates. Bubby was using a wall to support himself, groaning as he stood, pinching the bridge of his nose with a sharp inhale. 

When the old scientist reached for his firearm, a ripple in space was the only warning he received before it violently exploded in his hands. Tommy seemed to be the only one who found it funny, Gordon and Coomer shouting in surprise as Benrey, in a rare display of concern with a subdued “oh shit”, rummaged through the med kit at the edge of the room and tossed supplies the other’s way. Bubby gaped down at his hands, shredded to ribbons by shrapnel, gunpowder coating his front. What they were going through now, Gordon thought, had nothing to do with Black Mesa, or the Resonance Cascade. This was closer to a look into the deepest, most depraved power fantasies of a god gone mad. 

(Tommy laughed then, but seemed to realize all too late his mistake of covering a maniac pyromancer in gunpowder. Shaking off the pain with ease Gordon grew to expect from the crazy son of a bitch, Bubby tore off his lab coat, set it alight, and lobbed it Tommy’s way with a cackle. Gordon had never told him of what happened that second reset, but it was still all too satisfying to see him get his revenge.) 

As Tommy screamed, the world shifted around him — he was getting desperate, the walls of the room coming down to reveal the starry expanse of a timeless void, the floor beneath Gordon’s feet becoming a mass of writhing Sunkists, orbs of the Sweet Voice bouncing from corner to corner of the room with high-pitched hums. He couldn’t tell if it was in his head or not, and wasn’t about to waste any time by finding out. If there was anything Gordon had learned from this fucked up situation, it was that no stalling the inevitable could ever work on him. 

Tommy was distracted, Gordon realized, by the flames licking at his lab coat, beginning to scorch his skin and hair. He wailed miserably, and Gordon had to fight back the pity that forced its way to the surface even now. There was no time to waste — he turned to Coomer and Benrey, the only ones he could trust to aim right, and yelled at them to take the shot. He couldn’t even hear his own voice beneath the morphing of the world around him, the lapping and sniffing of the dogs beneath him, the drone of the Sweet Voice, but knew he’d done it when, after a barrage of gunfire, it all went quiet in an instant. 

A final flash — not of gold, but red — and Tommy was down. 

Blood roared in Gordon’s ears as he stared slack-jawed at the other’s limp form, just barely managing to make it out amidst the shadows of the dark room. Seconds passed, and Tommy still didn’t move, crumpled to the floor like a ragdoll. It took a moment for him to process — was it… _over?_ Was it really over? 

Tommy still didn’t move, and there, it finally hit him. 

He was free. He’d spent this entire run afraid something would happen, that Tommy would bring him back to that fateful hallway, that it would all be for naught — like the past resets had been. But now, that puppet-master was gone, never to tangle with Gordon’s life again, and he found himself cheering. Whooping and hollering out of sheer relief, the pain and the fact he could barely even hear himself for once pushed to the back of his mind. 

Perhaps it was more celebration than the act of killing their former teammate really _deserved,_ but Gordon couldn’t bring himself to care as he practically barreled into the other three, giving a lop-sided, one-armed hug in relief. 

“Ow.” Bubby winced, elbowing Gordon in the gut to get him away. He stepped back, confused, before remembering — right, he’d just been a few inches away from an exploding gun. Probably didn’t want hugs. Gordon sheepishly apologized, offering a hovering pat on the shoulder instead. 

“So happy to kill someone.” Benrey droned, but Gordon knew for once there was no malice in it. “Knew you were crazy. Shoulda locked you up when I had the chance.” 

“I’m awfully proud of you, Dr. Freeman!” Coomer beamed, tightly embracing the other. “You fought valiantly — let’s just hope he doesn’t rise from the dead for a “Sequel Hook”!” 

( _Man_ , why were those fourth wall breaks programmed in?) 

Gordon could only laugh, letting out a huge breath and pulling away to wipe the quickly forming tears from his eyes. He could look at himself and his friends and know this was how they’d be forever — he wouldn’t have to introduce himself to them or pretend to be oblivious to the countless timelines past ever again. They were here to stay — and after everything, that was really all Gordon wanted. 

(He knew the high would end in about… twenty minutes, maybe, replaced with the pain and guilt of what he’d just endured, but for now, he just wanted to celebrate that the worst part of it all was finally over.) 

“God, I…” He started, unable to make the words come — not really being able to hear them as they did didn’t help. Oh God, his volume control problems were gonna be a hundred times worse now, weren’t they? Whatever — he couldn’t really think about that right now. “…we… got him, didn’t we?” Another shaky laugh — did the others understand the significance of this to him? “I — shit, are we just going home now, then? No more resets?” 

“We’re going home!” Coomer echoed, pumping his left fist into the air on Gordon’s behalf. 

Bubby huffed. “Yes, yes, that’s all great — could we find a goddamn _medical station_ for everyone?” He snapped, pointing a thumb back to the one in the room with them “That one’s emptied, and I think I’m bleeding out through my palms.” He held his hands out for emphasis — it wasn’t fully visible in the dark, but they were bloodied, with visible shreds and tears. 

He craned his head down, baring his teeth to yank out a piece of shrapnel embedded in the web of his fingers, and somehow _that_ was more stomach-turning for Gordon to look at than the mutant dogs being ripped apart. He frantically waved his good hand about — “ _Jesus_ , okay, we’ll get you to a med kit, you look like a cat trying to eat its toes—!!” 

“Not so fast, Dr. Freeman.” 

Gordon froze at the familiar voice — unable to turn on his heel to find its source before the world rippled and flashed once more. He could only hope everyone would be the same when it was over. 

When he opened his eyes, he was relieved to see they all looked unchanged. If he had to endure another reset after _all of this,_ he’d probably just kill himself to end the cycle then and there. They stood in a cold void, an inky blackness, but one with more visibility than that dark room. Here he could see the viscera covering his teammates, the physical evidence of everything they’d just fought through (not just him, all of them — they didn’t understand, not fully, but they fought for him anyway, and _that_ just made Gordon want to cry, honestly). 

The gore splattering Benrey’s helmet, the golden dog fur coating Dr. Coomer’s clothes, the black gunpowder and ash all over Bubby’s sweater (he’d never seen the other without his lab coat until now, somehow)… the blood staining his earlobes, gunshot wounds Gordon hadn’t noticed before peppering _all_ of their bodies, teeth and claw marks marring their skin… he was lucky they’d all made it out okay. He knew they were all… far stronger than he was, but he didn’t know if he could’ve lived with himself if he knew he’d not only roped them into his personal battles, but got them _killed_ in one. 

One by one, though, he could see their injuries sealing in an instant. The gashes and bullet holes stopped bleeding, and from there, faded into hardened scabs — he could even feel the pain in his thigh ebbing, the blood clogging his ears clearing ever-so-slightly — still there, still painfully present, but not deadly. That was a relief — he didn’t think the man who brought them here had _that_ in him, but it wasn’t a surprise, with the abilities he’d demonstrated so far. 

Exhaling, he looked over to the new arrival. He didn’t know the suited man’s name, but recognized him from witnessing his conversation with Tommy while the world was suspended. Tommy’s father, it seemed, was the puppet-master behind everything in the first run, though he was quickly overthrown by the scientist in question. Gordon felt… mixed emotions, looking at this man. On one hand, he had every chance possible to intervene but somehow hadn’t, and if _any_ person was to blame for Tommy turning out the way he did, it’d be him, but… 

…on the other hand, Gordon didn’t think even _he_ could’ve anticipated this. 

Benrey seemed as nonplussed by the man’s appearance as he did by everything else, strutting right up to him to ask about PlayStation Plus, of all things. Dr. Coomer greeted him with a polite smile, while it took Gordon screaming in protest to keep Bubby from stealing a gun of Benrey’s to shoot him in the arm. 

The suited man only offered a tight-lipped smile in greeting. His gaze was uncomfortable to meet — something about his eyes just _pierced_ Gordon, even when he’d dealt with more than enough terrifying looks from the guy’s son. 

Gordon had to look away from his face — the guy just sent a chill up his spine, with his sunken-in eyes and tight, smooth… oily? …skin, to say nothing of his unsettling expression — but was met with another horror when he glanced down to find Tommy’s body prone on the ground. The carnage was grisly — his lab coat was ripped and nearly turned to ash, blisters and burns covered his skin, his sleeve was still bloodied from the shot Gordon managed to land in the crook of his elbow. His eyes were peacefully shut, though he looked less asleep and more just plain dead with the gunshot wounds that did him in. As much as they feared him in the moment, now Tommy looked almost painfully human without the angelic glowing and Sweet Voice halos. 

“Do you… know who this man was?” The suited man asked, bending to kneel over Tommy’s body with an unreadable expression. “He was my, son, if you will. I did not intend for him to… impede, your journey.” Looking at the two of them, Gordon could spot the family resemblance (he didn’t know if they were _biologically_ related, but still), and despite himself, his heart twisted — if this were to somehow happen to Joshua, no matter what he grew up to do, Gordon wouldn’t be able to keep a shred of this man’s composure. 

“He is not gone yet. It takes more than a few measly bullets to do the trick.” As the other spoke, Gordon took as many socially acceptable steps back from the body as he could. Tommy’s father smiled — sadly…? None of his expressions really showed much of anything. “But it has taught me a… lesson, if you will.” He didn’t elaborate, still studying his son. “It’s to my understanding that he has given you… a world of hurt. Yes?” 

Understatement of the century. Gordon just shook his head, trying to force a laugh but finding himself unable. “You have no idea, dude,” he sighed, deciding to just leave it there. 

Bubby, on the other hand, had no such restraint. “I hate this bitch!” 

Tommy’s father nodded, grimacing, before his face loosened into that familiar suspicious smile. “I took him under my wing myself, bestowed upon him the… powers, he hurt you with so. He never used them until now.” Even as he stood, his gaze never left Tommy. “Perhaps it was… a mistake, to give this damaged child the mind of a God.” 

_He’s thirty-six,_ Gordon had to bite back from responding, before realizing “child” could mean just about anything to a… _being_ like this. Just what had he gotten roped into? He was getting the sudden impression that this was far greater than just Tommy, and the thought made him go pale. 

“Yeah, I…” it came out of Gordon’s mouth before he could even really stop it. He didn’t want to speak for Tommy, but the fact he was a friend at the beginning couldn’t go unspoken. “He was our friend at the start. Really. I never could’ve pictured back then… him doing anything like this.” 

“You know how power can change a person, Gordon.” Dr. Coomer noted. 

…he thought back to the start. Truthfully, he didn’t think Tommy was ever masking his true nature. He doesn’t look back on the other cheerfully reciting OSHA regulations or babbling about his dog and see someone luring him into a false sense of security. Maybe that was a lapse in judgment, but for better or worse, the being they just defeated was not the Tommy Gordon had introduced himself to over billboards those eons ago. 

Was it wrong to mourn the Tommy he thought he knew? Gordon grimaced — there was no way to truly tell. 

“…I guess so.” 

Tommy’s father — Mr. Coolatta? — hummed in thought. “I see.” He finally answered, dipping his head. “You have fought a long, tiring journey to get here, and I believe you should… have the liberty… of your lost memories.” 

Eyebrows furrowing in concern, Gordon cast a look over his shoulder at his teammates. It didn’t necessarily surprise him that that was an ability of Mr. Coolatta’s, but — to be honest, he didn’t expect the man to be gracious enough to use it. 

“This is… far larger than this timeline, after all.” Mr. Coolatta enunciated, and Gordon couldn’t protest — what would they even see? Did they even _want_ to see it? — before the world rippled and flashed once more. 

* * *

Bubby’s head pounded, face scrunching up in discomfort as _however long’s_ worth of memories came flooding back to him. There was a time where he would’ve regarded this sort of thing as nothing more than a kid’s fairytale, and… to be honest, it was still hard to swallow, but now, the proof was staring him in the face. It took a moment to process, until slowly, but surely, everything resurfaced. 

He’d always prided himself on knowing the ins and outs of Black Mesa and its absolute trainwreck of architectural design, and at a point, was confident that nothing could surprise him anymore. He knew everything there was to know! He was _born_ down here! 

Still, though, it came as a surprise to look back and realize just how much time had been ripped away by Tommy. How long they’d all spent together, fighting through Black Mesa’s winding corridors, getting distracted by soda machines and tram cars… it was nothing compared to what they’d just gone through. He found himself missing it — longing for memories he’d repressed up until now. 

They had fun back then. He had his back-and-forth inside jokes with Benrey and Dr. Coomer, and guided Tommy around the facility, keeping him out of trouble. It was rocky, yes, and in the moment, he hated it — he was just dealing with his home being ripped asunder, after all! — but more than anything, Bubby just felt _anger_ at his past self. 

Full of himself, pushing the blame for all this bullshit onto Gordon, not knowing how lucky he was to be around scientists who valued him as a teammate instead of beating him into submission when he spoke out of line. He sold Gordon out to the soldiers and didn’t look back. Compassion had never been Bubby’s thing, and it still wasn’t, but the emotion he felt looking at Gordon Freeman now was closer to pity. He’d endured far too much to hurt again — and yet, there Bubby’s past self was, cheering as his arm was ripped off with a combat knife. 

It didn’t last — he was knocked over the head not long after, and woke up in the middle of being stuffed into his GODDAMN TUBE AGAIN. He kicked at the glass, clawed at the openings, all to no avail, until, at a point, in a flash of gold, it all cut out. 

Then he was back wandering with the others — Gordon’s arm was back, and Benrey was still asking him about the betrayal plan. A second chance, even if he didn’t know it at the time, and one he completely fucking blew. 

In his defense, he didn’t remember the last timeline, but that did nothing to lessen the secondhand anger at remembering how he’d gone to try it again. They lured Gordon into that goddamn med kit room, the lights went out, he prepared to give the order, just like before, except this time… 

…this… time… 

_Tommy._

It felt completely involuntary when Bubby’s scarred hands set ablaze. Fangs bore, he stomped towards Tommy’s limp form, and it took that suited prick stopping time to keep Bubby from sending his brat son down to Hell where he belonged. 

Not just for his sake — not anymore. He remembered the surprise in Gordon’s eyes — the _fear_ — to see him knocked to the floor and hauled off, and after the bond they’d forged this time, Bubby wanted nothing more than to hurt the person who’d caused it. 

* * *

The first thing Dr. Coomer remembered was the world beyond Black Mesa — or, to be more accurate, the lack of one. That was the memory that hit him like a freight train — how the world revolved around Gordon in the worst way imaginable, the pain he felt every time the physicist went to sleep. Following that realization, he was barely cognisant of the world around him — and who could blame him? Did Dr. Freeman losing his arm really matter if none of it was real? 

And then time rewound, and Coomer realized there was perhaps an anomaly even greater than the protagonist of their tale. 

He didn’t think as much of it as he should’ve — still trapped in his slump of existential misery, floating through it all with an empty, distant coldness, because he still couldn’t shake what he’d seen beyond the mountaintops, it’d drive _any_ man mad — even as they lost Bubby, and even as they were being pressed against the wall of a bunker to be shot and turned into Irish stews. 

Then time rewound again, and suddenly, it was no concern at all. He was as mindless of the truth as ever, as there he was again in Black Mesa with his friends — no cosmic horror revelations, no apocalypse, no strife… Time kept rewinding, and of course he was oblivious to it all, but in retrospect, there was a certain peace to it. He was right in his element — doing science with his dear friends, and without a care in the world! 

Dr. Freeman was the only thing keeping him from being lost in that fairytale. Gordon saw it all, awake for every second, repeating every conversation and interaction a number of times that would drive anyone mad. He remembered the terrified look in Gordon’s eyes as he poured his heart out to him in the locker room — and there Coomer felt a pang. It made no sense to him in the moment, but really thinking about it now, it was all too similar to his own painful realization about the world. 

_If you woke up one day and realized everything around you was a lie, was fake… what would you do?_

He looked to Gordon now — battered and broken, blood leaking from his ears, his shoulder, sclera crimson and eyes unfocused with mad knowledge beyond human comprehension. His hair had grown, now tangled like a bird’s nest, more strands out of place than in place. 

But he was determined still, looking proudly at his teammates. They did it — survived the Resonance Cascade, survived the time loops, beat the final boss! For once, Coomer could completely understand the significance of this all to Gordon, hours upon hours of lost time finally paying off, and the physicist could only grin in the face of it all. 

At first it hurt Coomer to realize he couldn’t bear to do the same upon learning the truth, but then, he was filled with that same sense of pride and determination. 

He could start now, he realized, mirroring Gordon’s crooked, triumphant smile. 

* * *

Everything was just a game to Benrey. Literally and metaphorically — he didn’t really remember when he realized it, except that it switched off a light within him that never quite came back on. From there, he became… 

…well, who he was today — the cruel, childish security guard that stalked people around and went on LiveLeak for fun, long beyond feeling any kind of real human reaction towards any of it. And he looked at Tommy there on the ground in the void they were standing in and felt something he hadn’t felt in eons — _oh my god, that could’ve been me._

Or, more accurately, _oh my god, I’m glad that wasn’t me._ And for once, he wasn’t thinking that out of self-preservation, but because he didn’t _want_ to be as cruel as Tommy. He saw that lunatic and his mangled Sweet Voice — stealing his thing! He could totally sue for that. — and the hellhounds maiming them all through the light sputtering on and off, and decided… _yeah, no, not for me, thanks._ Looking back on it now, he was… more than a little unnerved at how close he got the first time around. 

Yeah. Really. Benrey, not wanting to hurt people. Crazy, right? 

He remembered the resets, and nearly doubled over laughing (laughing! he hasn’t done that in forever!) at the memory of Gordon fucking around with him throughout. Bribing him with twenty dollars to get him to not follow him around. Spouting his lines back at him. Pulling stupid pranks to keep from going mad. Were they really that similar? 

Looking back on their early dynamic, it was a miracle Gordon had it in him to see Benrey as some kind of friend now, after all he put him through — especially after ten million resets that all started with Benrey’s weird ugly mug staring him down. But he supposed there were worse enemies to worry about — for all the shit Benrey pulled, he wasn’t… Tommy. 

And he was thankful for that, somehow. He had a real friendship for once — one not founded on shallow video game chats or being a dick to the same people. 

It made him feel kind of human for once. 

* * *

The stretch of silence as they remembered felt like a decade, and Gordon couldn’t figure out what to do with his hands as he waited. (Hand, singular, technically, but this time around, he still _had_ the hand. It was just… nonfunctional, like a limp noodle handing off his shoulder. That was going to take a long time to get used to.) 

He didn’t know what he expected — worst case scenario, they all yelled at him and hated him forever before stomping off, leaving him in this weird time void with his tormenter’s body — but certainly not Bubby readying his pyromancy and making a start for Tommy. His father stiffened in surprise, stepping between them — time stopped, and in an instant, the void was gone. 

Gordon’s throat nearly closed in panic the second he realized it, heart pounding as he prepared to make a dash for the test chamber, before his shoulders slumped in relief to find he wasn’t in that familiar hallway, but just outside that _goddamn_ med kit room — honestly, the levels of dread associated with those locations were about the same. 

Glancing around, his teammates were nowhere to be seen. The lights were on in there for once, and there Gordon could finally see the carnage left by the fight with Tommy. Blood and scorch marks covered the walls, the medical station was emptied, and most revolting of all, the mangled bodies of the Sunkist prototypes lay strewn about. Holes were blown through their forms, and there were places Gordon couldn’t tell the difference between wounds or them just being _like that._

He had to look away. There was nothing waiting for him in that room — no sign of Tommy himself. Turning on his heel, he called out for the others — “Benrey? Bubby? Dr. Coomer? Uh — Mr. …Coolatta?” — to no avail. He’d spent so much of this adventure alone that he should’ve been used to it — living reset after reset with nobody but him and Tommy — but something felt different about traversing the Resonance Cascade alone. 

It gave too much of a sense of deja vu — coming out of that room, suddenly alone, with only one functional arm. It hurt to think that far back, even when he’d done it so many times — despite it all, it still hurt to remember the lighter times, when he could trust Tommy, when his only concern was helping this band of weirdos get to the surface and not die in the process. 

Even now, he couldn’t tell if it was for better or worse that things turned out the way they did. Sighing, he turned down the corridor, only to be jumpscared by Benrey phasing through the wall with a “BOO!”. He staggered back, laughing in astonishment as Benrey stepped into the threshold of the hallway. The other’s abilities were once terrifying, a source of endless paranoia, but now, the noclipping wasn’t even in the top _ten_ of the weirdest shit he’d encountered as of late. 

So Mr. Coolatta had dispersed them all — presumably just to keep Bubby from cremating his son — though Gordon wasn’t sure how far apart. He supposed it made sense — there was still escaping to the surface to be done. That _was_ what they were doing before Tommy… did all of that. 

He was thankful to find no soldiers in the immediate vicinity — Gordon may have been chill with Benrey now, but the fight with Tommy was the only instance he’d ever seen the man do anything in battle, usually settling for strutting casually through it all or flashing his passports his enemies’ way, and he was _not_ going to survive if pitted against a soldier, armed only with Benrey’s passport (his actual one this time) and a gun in his non dominant hand. 

While wandering, hopping down from some kind of pipe they’d had to crawl through, Gordon stopped, realizing something. He turned to Benrey. “Hey bud, uh… you okay?” 

The other just stared for a couple seconds as he processed the question. “Whuh?” He finally asked. 

“I mean…” Gordon inhaled sharply — was this even appropriate to bring up? Wait, why was he wondering about _social cues_ in a conversation with _Benrey?_ “You and Tommy. I’unno the specifics, but —” he thought to the first run, Benrey shouting Tommy’s name across the room, casually kissing him on the cheek as he rambled about a monster they’d encountered… then what Tommy had said about him in that break room party. “— you guys were friends, right? Are you, like… _coping_ okay?” 

Benrey’s expression didn’t change, empty and unreadable as ever, but Gordon wondered about the beat of silence that followed — was he in thought, or just being his odd self? Finally, he just gave a little shrug, making a noncommittal noise as he wandered on past Gordon. He wasn’t satisfied with that — he’d press further, but he knew by now that emotional vulnerability wasn’t exactly Benrey’s thing. 

Scratch that. _Emotions_ weren’t exactly Benrey’s thing. He’d made progress with him, yeah, but not enough to get any real read on the guy. Gordon chewed his inner cheek, unable to fight the concern he felt, but figured it wasn’t something they’d get anywhere on. Putting it behind them, they kept walking, thankfully finding someone with actual fighting experience sooner rather than later. 

“Hello, Gordon!” Coomer had greeted them outside in the desert. “Knowledge of past timelines has caused me to ascend to a higher plane! Soon I may even traverse into the “Real World”.” 

…Gordon really hoped that was just a bad joke and not a threat, he could _not_ take any more of those. 

They located Bubby by the screams long before they found the man himself, so rudely shoved into a tube he quickly clarified was his. Gordon would think Mr. Coolatta was playing some kind of prank if the man had a humorous bone in his entire body. This just seemed to be bad luck. 

And so there the Science Team was, back together — at a point, Gordon pitched a rename for the group, “The Science Team” having more negative connotations for them than positive at this rate, but that conversation stopped when Benrey pulled out a gun in response to Gordon’s suggestion of “The Science Time” — finding the Resonance Cascade almost _too_ easy to traverse without Tommy’s intrusions. The following hour was a cakewalk compared to the last, even when Gordon found himself having to hide behind barrels as he missed more and more shots, and was unable to hear soldiers coming until they were right behind him. 

No matter what Black Mesa threw at them, it was hard to be worse than Tommy Coolatta. 

Until they found the man himself once more, unconscious and curled up in the wrong end of a garbage compactor. Gordon would’ve laughed at the irony if it didn’t run the very real risk of alerting him awake, carefully stepping down before backing as far away from him as possible. 

“Don’t be such a baby.” Bubby huffed, walking right up to the body, trash and gunk crunching beneath his feet. “Hey, fucker!” He snapped, winding a leg back to kick Tommy right in the temple. Gordon cringed — able to just see the suited man out of the corner of his eye, likely shielding the group from his son in case something went wrong again. 

Tommy stirred, moaning in pain at the impact, and Gordon could feel his heart drop into his stomach. Pushing himself to his hands and knees, Gordon found his injuries mostly healed, though ghosts of the burn marks and gunshots still remained. For a moment, when Tommy’s gaze met them, he looked like the quiet, bright, childish scientist they’d all befriended way back when. His eyes were mortal, dark and vaguely confused, and Gordon found himself with a flicker of hope despite it all. 

Then Tommy raised his hand, feebly flexing his fingers, and there, the mask of sanity had been completely dropped. He clenched his fist again and again, then felt along the holster of his belt for any weapons, growing increasingly panicked to find none, and the manic look in his eyes Gordon had come to hate swiftly returned. His breathing came hard and fast as he backed into the corner of the garbage compactor, eyes wide as they darted from member to member of the Science Team. 

Finally, they settled on Gordon, who felt much like he’d picture a hiker being stared down by a hungry lioness would. He couldn’t bring himself to move, but Tommy sure could, scrambling to his feet to make a run for Gordon like a rabid dog. He barreled into the physicist, knocking him to the ground, and Gordon futilely attempted to pull away as Tommy forwent the powers, the Sweet Voice, and the guns entirely, starting to raise his fists and beat down on his friend with a wordless shout of vitriol. 

“Mmm _mean!_ ” was one of the only words Gordon could make out as he shielded his face with a hand, Tommy wrenching it away as he slammed a fist down onto Gordon’s temple, gripping him by the hair to slam his head against the floor. Coomer dashed over and wrapped an arm around Tommy’s waist to try and tug him away — he kept yelling, feebly kicking and thrashing even as he was forcefully dragged away, “now we can’t even go back anymore! Are you _happy,_ Mr. Freeman?! Are you happy with — wuh, w-with — with what you made everyone do?! I hurt ‘em all ‘cause of you! Are you _proud_ of yourself?!” He snarled, and Gordon knew he was spouting bullshit, but it felt like a knife in his chest nonetheless. 

Tommy must’ve recognized this, as he kept going — “It’s your fault! _You’re_ the mean one, Mr. Freeman! You made me do this! We all coulda been so happy if — i-if, if it wasn’t — wasn’t for _you!_ ” he spat as Gordon got to his feet, head aching from the fresh new bruises, trying to wipe the sludge off his numb arm in an attempt to distract himself from Tommy’s words. “Are you even _listening?!_ ” The other shouted. 

“Mneh mneh _mneh mneh._ ” Benrey mocked back, that seeming to be the extent of his helpfulness in this situation. It did get an amused exhale, though. 

Just as Tommy opened his mouth for another barrage of insults, he stopped in his tracks, his eyes once bulging with anger now frozen in place. That was… another time stop, right? Gordon paused, watching to make sure the other didn’t move, before he hesitantly stepped over. As he did, he glanced around to find where Mr. Coolatta had gone, only to find the man by his side when he looked back. About to ask about that, he thought better stopped himself. He couldn’t question how Mr. Coolatta worked anymore. 

There was an entire unspoken conversation as the older man looked over to Gordon — he had to do what must’ve been done. He wanted to give Tommy more chances, and for that Gordon couldn’t blame him, but he seemed to realize he was far beyond them now. No human being could’ve been given the amount of power Tommy had and stayed sane, after all. 

It wasn’t brutal, or painful, and Tommy probably didn’t even realize it happened, but the suited man had never looked as pained as he did when he blinked, and in a warp of space and a ripple of pink and black squares, Tommy was blipped out of existence, just like that. 

Gordon shut his eyes with an exhale, thinking back to Joshua at the sight. He wouldn’t be able to just _execute_ his son like that — he didn’t know what was going through Mr. Coolatta’s head, but he empathized, unable to even imagine the agony it must’ve caused to do such a thing. For all the hurt he caused everyone, he was still someone’s child at the end of the day — someone’s child they’d had to erase from existence with their own hands. 

Breaking the silence, eyes still fixed on the spot his son once stood, Mr. Coolatta sighed. “I am… sorry, again, for the… intrusion.” He spoke, shoulders slumping as if the weight of the world had been carried on them. 

“But I _love_ intrusions!” Dr. Coomer interjected, in what must’ve been a failed attempt to cheer him up. 

It didn’t work, and the comment was ignored entirely. “I had my plans for your journey, you know. Tommy’s birthday is soon. I would have brought you all to a party, after you escaped, but, ah…” He folded his hands, finally looking up to meet the rest of the Science Team. “…it appears that avenue is. No longer viable.” 

Tommy’s last death brought celebration — exhausted, blood-soaked cheering, happy to be alive, happy to be free once and for all — but this one was simply _grim._ They couldn’t celebrate even if they wanted to, standing down a mourning father with his son’s blood on his hands. In a stretch of silence, no one answered, all awaiting Mr. Coolatta’s next words. 

“But…” he continued, having to pause to plaster on his usual creepy smile — it didn’t quite meet his eyes, even when his voice sounded a tad lighter. “You have earned your right to the surface. It would be… _cruel,_ for me to withhold that from you now.” He nodded towards Benrey. “As it would be to force you through the final legs of your adventure.” 

Fidgeting with the fingers of his limp hand, Gordon’s heart was racing — did this mean what he was hoping it would? 

Mr. Coolatta stepped aside, hands tucked neatly behind his straightened back, as if snuffing out that spark of vulnerability that came with Tommy’s erasure. Gordon stepped back in surprise when space ripped open before his very eyes, tearing apart to reveal the void of a portal around the size and shape of a doorway. 

Confirming they could see it, too, he looked over to Dr. Coomer, Benrey, and Bubby — Bubby settling a hand on his fellow scientist’s shoulder to keep him from just rushing into the threshold, an imposing, swirling mass of black and green matter that everyone seemed to look upon with equal confusion. 

“It’s quite pretty, isn’t it?” Dr. Coomer hummed, the silence he broke making Gordon realize they were waiting on him. 

He had to take time to breathe and think — rarely if ever were there moments of reprieve from this madness, and he couldn’t make a decision like this when the afterimage of Tommy being erased from this very plane was still burned into his mind. He was gone, and now… _this_ was next. Whatever _this_ was. 

“I… yeah.” Gordon nodded, swallowing. “Kind of is, in a weird way.” A spiral of bright green energy shone through the blackness, crackling like a lightning ball, sparks flying to nowhere in particular. It looked otherworldly — like an entire galaxy contained in one small gateway. He wondered what it’d feel like to go into — Mr. Coolatta could’ve been leading them into some interdimensional slaughterhouse for all they knew. Whatever was on the other end of the portal, it wasn’t visible — the only way to find out was to step through. 

_Fine by me,_ Gordon thought. Either sweet, well-deserved freedom after their painful ordeal, or yet another circle of Hell itself — whatever it was, it’d be new, and the Science Team could face it together, and after ages upon ages of suffering alone, reliving the same hour, meeting the same people, fighting the same fights, that was all he could ask for. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's Stop Time! Holy moly, what a ride - and one I'm so glad people wanted to join me on! I don't usually write multichapters or longfics, this being my longest fic yet, but I'm getting a grasp on it... My power grows, Gordon!
> 
> I'll proceed with some fun facts, both about this ending and the AU in general, but first, some special thanks to people who helped me out a ton with this fic: Salem and Dan, who let me throw WIPs their way and were amazing moral support I am so very thankful to have, Fig and Sammi, who helped me conceptualize this AU and I can't imagine thought it would turn into a 40k word fanfiction, and both the A Lotta Freelatta and Half-Life VR But The AI Are Discord Users servers for expressing interest in this idea and helping out, both when I first came up with it and when I started writing it out! Y'all're the real ones. 
> 
> In addition, Tumblr user @thedevotress for making [this wonderful HLVRAI workskin!](https://thedevotress.tumblr.com/post/628408989141581824/i-just-got-reminded-of-my-hlvrai-workskin-so) It was very fun to work with and I feel added such a cool layer to this fic, so please go check it out!
> 
> And, of course, a thank you to readers like you!!! Readers are any writer's lifeblood, and every comment and bookmark this story gets makes me very very happy. And some love too for the silent readers, I hope you liked it!
> 
> That aside, here are some fun facts about this chapter, which you can proceed to the comment section if you're not interested in:  
> \- Yellow to Red means "you're gonna wish you were dead".  
> \- The Sweet Voice being sensory hell when used maliciously is based on the bit in canon where they find the skeleton in the vents. Obviously, I've taken... many liberties there, but y'know.  
> \- Tommy mocking Gordon about "wanting to play his game" isn't him being self-aware - he just remembers that conversation they had in the second to last run and takes Gordon calling it a game as him just being inconsiderate.  
> \- I read the creepypasta Dogscape when I was like 14 and it's stuck with me. You can tell.  
> \- The joke about Benrey killing his neighbor's dog just kind of came out of me. You know that John Mulaney quote that's like, "that joke never gets a laugh, but you write it and it stays in the act forever"? Yeah. I wanted to write some callback to that in the second half of the chapter - specifically Gordon asking Benrey if he actually did that or if he was just bluffing, and Benrey says nothing in response, leaving it a... weird mystery. - but, like many ideas for this fic, I forgot them by the time I was writing the scenes in question XD  
> \- Gordon getting shot in the shoulder and losing feeling in his arm was both a fun callback/meaningful moment, and me feeling it'd be weird if he got through this AU with two completely intact arms. Obviously, it's not the same as _amputation_ , but y'know.  
> \- G-Man being described as "oily" and "smooth" is a reference to two different inside jokes respective to the Discord servers mentioned above.  
> \- I apologize formally to everyone I described the plot of this AU to before it became a fic and thought Tommy would be redeemed when they found him in the trash. I fill a mug with your tears.
> 
> And some about this AU in general:  
> \- I've said this in the comments, but I wanted to make a villain!Tommy AU that didn't involve him being particularly jaded or "aren't you tired of being nice?", just because I don't really _like_ more jaded Tommy interpretations. I wanted to make a villain!Tommy that was still his usual childish silly self, while still being creepy and imposing... and I made this BEAST instead.  
> \- In addition, I don't usually headcanon Tommy as any kind of god or having powers, and... this fic is basically why XD  
> \- [I have a playlist for this AU!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4HsNKwLuB7h2hSzTWeHxxB?si=MptyRtLjTiGjd9iLdJs_lQ) It's in chronological order based on the fic's events, and now you all can judge my music taste.
> 
> As always, I'm @bandtrees on Tumblr! Thank you so much for reading :'D

**Author's Note:**

> As of posting this, I have all of ch2 (and some of ch3) written, as well as the whole fic's outline. So look forward to it! This AU has been on my mind for a while and I'm so, so excited to be bringing it to life.
> 
> Comments are appreciated! I'm @bandtrees on Tumblr :]


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